Camera Obscura — Photographs Exposed for an Entire Year

Stories from The 7th Day Project, probably the largest solarygraphy archive in the world

Pinhole camera #18, solarygraphy, exposure time: one year. Photograph from The 7th Day project (Günther).

The Black Cube

For 25 years, I sold stories and photographs on the streets of Europe. My constant companion was a black cube — a mobile gallery, an attempt to carry the white exhibition space out into the world, to places where no one expected it.

On streets, in public squares, at fairs, I would set it up and sell pinhole photographs. Small film canisters that I had carefully transformed by hand into cameras could remain outside for months, even years, slowly exposing.

The light wrote its own story — I merely provided the paper.

Günther and me; Freiburg, 2014. Portrait taken with a pinhole camera on color film. Photograph by the author.

Meeting Günther

In August 2014, in Freiburg im Breisgau, I met Günther. An older gentleman. A mathematician, a vegetarian, a worshipper of the sun. He was fascinated by the camera obscura, especially by the small film canisters.

To him, these cameras were not tools. They were machines of patience.

Pinhole camera installation by Günther. Photograph from the archive of The 7th Day project.

His idea was ambitious: eighteen cameras arranged to capture the entire sky, exposed for one full year. I provided the cameras. Weeks later,

I received a letter with the first photograph of this extraordinary construction. Everything had to be precisely aligned.

One year of exposure means one year of trust in the invisible.

Günther’s construction drawings for the pinhole camera installation. Image from the archive of The 7th Day project. Links in the image: the paper negatives.

A Look Back: The Technique

The technique I use goes back to Nicéphore Niépce. Beginning in 1816, he experimented with paper coated in silver salts, which darkened when exposed to light.

His first photographs, called “Rétines,” captured the view from his window — but they were not fixed. In sunlight, they continued to darken until the image disappeared.

The project The 7th Day, which I started in 2012, is dedicated to that moment: the first image in history created by light, only to be destroyed by it again.

Today, nearly 13,000 people worldwide have participated.

Seven days is the minimum exposure time. Anything beyond that is devotion.

After exposure, I scan the negatives and convert them digitally into positives. Only this way can I preserve what was originally destined to fade.

Pinhole camera, solarygraphy, exposure time: one year. Photograph from The 7th Day project (Günther).

The Mistake

A year passed. In mid-October 2015, I received another letter from Günther. The negatives had arrived.

They were curved, partially covered with mold, slightly damp. Günther had made a mistake: the cameras had been screwed through the base into the structure. Water had seeped in and damaged parts of the photographic paper.

Technically speaking: a disaster. Aesthetically speaking: a miracle.

I scanned the negatives and converted them into positives — and I was speechless.

What seemed destroyed had produced an unexpected beauty. Forms, lines, traces of light — shaped by chance. The moisture had created structures no human could have designed.

The mistake became a co-author.

Pinhole camera, solarygraphy, exposure time: one year. Photograph from The 7th Day project (Günther).

Pinhole camera, solarygraphy, exposure time: one year. Photograph from The 7th Day project (Günther).

Pinhole camera, solarygraphy, exposure time: one year. Photograph from The 7th Day project (Günther).

Pinhole camera, solarygraphy, exposure time: one year. Photograph from The 7th Day project (Günther).

Pinhole camera, solarygraphy, exposure time: one year. Photograph from The 7th Day project (Günther).

Pinhole camera, solarygraphy, exposure time: one year. Photograph from The 7th Day project (Günther).

Pinhole camera, solarygraphy, exposure time: one year. Photograph from The 7th Day project (Günther).

Pinhole camera, solarygraphy, exposure time: one year. Photograph from The 7th Day project (Günther).

Pinhole camera, solarygraphy, exposure time: one year. Photograph from The 7th Day project (Günther).

The Light Continues

Günther later moved to Greece, chasing the sun. I do not know whether he is still alive.

But his cameras captured an entire year of sky.

The project The 7th Day continues. Every camera, every exposure, every accidental transformation is part of something larger.

Sometimes the strongest image emerges where we lose control.

Seven days. One year. Eight years.

For the light, there is no difference. It draws — and we learn to see.