Wayne Martin Belger crafts  meticulously handmade pinhole cameras–themselves works of art, designed as altars and set with relics and gemstones– each to explore specific subjects. His work melds form and function into high art, creating a direct communion between himself, the subject, the viewer, with subjects ranging from icons of loss, decay and destruction; religious figures; and man’s injustice towards man and nature;

to witness and be a tool of the horrors of creation and the beauty of decay presented by the author of light and time.

By keeping the aperture open for any length time from two seconds to 90 minutes, Belger’s photographs are in fact movies distilled on a single frame–photons from the stationary subject, as well moving objects in the field, are absorbed onto the emulsion creating softened, at times ghost-like,  images. (To compare and contrast, 35mm movie film runs 24 frames per second, while super-high speed digital still cameras can shoot 60 frames per second). Belger explains:

With pinhole photography, the same air that touches my subject can pass through the pinhole and touch the photo emulsion on the film. There’s no barrier between the two. There are no lenses changing and manipulating light. There are no chips converting light to binary code. With pinhole what you get is an unmanipulated true representation of a segment of light and time, a pure reflection of what is at that moment.

“Sons of Abraham (9/11)” studies rabbis, priests and imans at their place of worship, holding their version of the the holy book. The camera is build from a solid block of aircraft aluminum and inlaid with 19th century religious texts.  A piece of steel girder from the World Trade Center has been drilled out and surrounds the aperture; the subject is seen through 9/11.

For “Blood Works” his exploration and study of HIV/AIDS, Belger created the “Untouchable (HIV),” camera using aluminum, copper, titanium and acrylic. HIV+ blood from one of Belger’s friends–the blood is treated with heparin sulfate to prevent coagulation–pumps through the camera then in front of the pinhole, becoming a #25 red filter.  For shooting with “Untouchable,” Belger holds opens calls, and has captured a wide range of HIV+ people across the United States, with plans to photograph HIV+/AIDS subjects throughout Africa this upcoming spring in advance of his participation in a December 2012 group show at the Royal Ontario Museum, which will also include his Third Eye, Yama and Heart cameras and the photos they produce. The show also features works from Joel Peter Witkin, Steven Gregory, Marc Quinn (whose models include Buck Angel and whose sculpture “Alison Lapper Pregnant” was installed in Trafalgar Square), Robert Krasnow, WhiteFeather, Francois Robert, Weiki Somers, Charles LeDray, Rosamond Purcell and Mark Prent.

Currently on  exhibit as part of La Luz de Jesus’ 25th anniversary show, “Yama”–named for the Tibetan god of death, designed with the skull of a 500-year Tibetan monk and set with opals, turquoise, rubies and sapphires–was created to photograph Tibetan refugees in Dharmasala, India and Belger’s interpretations of deities and avatars from all faiths. Yama has a pinhole positioned in each eye, and the resulting dual images become three dimensional when viewed at a certain distance.

Belger’s beautiful machines and the photographs he produces with them are stunning, surreal, yet incredibly grounded and visceral expressions of the artist’s and subjects’ place in time and light, and our brief time and place on earth.

 

Photos 1-4, Wayne Martin Belger, used by permission

Photos 5 and 6, James D. Rietveld, used by permission