Axbridge Review: From pre-history to the digital age photographer Ian Mason’s exhibition Presence of Absence celebrates the creative aspects of the pin hole camera
By Google News Category Photography ·
By Harry Mottram: Students of photography will be familiar with creating pinhole cameras from shoe boxes and seeing the magic of an inverse image reflected. Former photography lecturer Ian Mason’s Presence of Absence exhibition at the Axe Vale Arts centre takes the mechanics of a pin hole camera into a celebration of the basic device.
His camera is not a shoe box, but a commercial camera purchased to take photographs in a way that early photography pioneers would recognise.
The exhibition features colourful images from the Glastonbury Festival, New York and Florida with images of fire hydrants, restaurants, night life, beaches and people queuing for food. An immediate impression that greets the viewer are the blurred nature of the photographs and the way the colours – whether it’s a street scene or a café – wash into each other.
The nature of the pinhole camera – literally a minute hole in a small wood box – means the images lack sharpness and are created by exposing the film inside with very long exposures. The shortest one Ian explained was 20 seconds while the longest one was several hours.
People as a result are often like ghosts in the photos – a partial outline here – a staggered movement of a body there. More of a suggestion of people – populating but not dominating the setting. Hyper colourisation adds to the wide-angled images giving a cinematic feel to the pictures reflecting the title of the exhibition of their human presence being there but absent as well.
Modern cameras are predated by the use of pin hole projection in camera obscuras used by artists for centuries and even into pre-history until the invention of conventional photography in the early 19th century and substitution of the pin hole with a lens.
The photographs were shot using his pin hole camera onto roll film, which were then developed and processed before being digitally printed on a gloss paper.
The show was in the Undercroft Gallery at Axe Vale Arts Centre, the Old Methodist Chapel, West Street in Axbridge from Saturday 7th to Sunday 8th November 2026.
For more on Ian Mason’s work visit https://ianmasonphoto.com/
For more events at Axe Vale Arts Centre visit https://www.ticketsource.com/whats-on/axbridge/axe-vale-arts-centre
Some Axbridge dates coming up at https://www.harrymottram.co.uk/diary/
Note: I get asked this frequently so just to repeat I write up these stories from time to time out of personal interest – all the information is in the public domain – I put it together, so it makes sense to me. I’ve always taken an interest in local affairs having worked as a journalist in Somerset for many years.
More at at www.harrymottram.co.uk and social media on X as @harrythe spiv, Facebook, Blue Sky, LinkedIn, Instagram, Threads and God knows where else!
Originally published by Google News Category Photography
