The flying bird who had no legs

A Tupiniquin-Sino-Saxon pinhole tale

That’s the story of a lady bird who didn’t have legs. Because of that she had to fly during her whole life. It was foreseen that the day that she stoped flying would be the day of her death. She would lose her fathers, her wings, grow legs and die.

This is the visual pinhole tale of that moment when she stoped flying. It is not a particularly sad moment, although, it is a bit melancholic as she goes back in her memories, lost in retrospective thoughts of her life. A dihcotomic daydream where she can watch herself detached of her body. It is a lonely experience for her as only she can be the subject of her own life.

Textures and windows against a bright sky where she will no longer stretch her wings. An enclosed bird losing her wings while landing in a transitional wheelchair which carries her from the life she has had so far to meet her fait. Deep inside she is at peace and even happy as she had been flying from a long distance and an even longer time.

She wants to scream a wild yowl in convulsive spasms. However, instead, she can only contemplate and wait for the inevitable legs to grow.

About the pinhole camera

It is a very rudimentar handcrafted camera. Basically is consist in a light sealed chamber, like a box or a can, with a thiny pinhole which works as a the aperture. There is no lens in this camera. Then, you might use film or photographic paper in opposite to it inside of the camera. This paper or film will then register the image that is formed by the light rays passing through the pinhole and being projected on it. The exposure is manually controlled by opening and closing the hole with the help of a black gaffa tape.

To find out for how long your film or paper should be exposed, you start making tests and manually developing the images in the darkroom, one by one, to see if you are under or over exposing the pictures.

Below you will find the step by step of the making of the pinhole constructed for this exercise. Its average exposure time, considering a bright sun light hitting directly on the subject , was around 30″ to 40″.