Athens, GA, 2008

“Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” Dylan Thomas

Yes, this photograph is supposed to look like this, and no, it is not out of focus. In fact, everything in the photograph, from closest to farthest, is in exactly the same focus, because this was made with a pinhole optic, not a lens which would bend the light. By refracting the light with a lens we can make a selected distance much sharper, but then every other distance will be softer, the further from the focus point, the softer it will be.

Some might say that with smaller apertures on the lens we can make multiple distances sharp using greater depth of field. Not so. We can create the illusion of relative sharpness because of the “circles of confusion,” but I’m not going there.

I have mentioned my mentor Wiley Sanderson several times in this blog. Throughout my life I have had good teachers, formal and not. Sanderson was different. He was a hard, demanding teacher, the toughest I ever had, and I learned more from him than anyone I’ve ever met, except my parents, sister, and Barbara.

Here at his 90th birthday party I learned he had Alzheimer’s, but was assured he was doing well, contented, smiling, and happy. That was just wrong. If anyone was going to rage against the dying of the light I always thought it would be him.

So much student work at the beginning of his course sequence was done with pinhole, and most of his personal work explored so many possibilities of that approach. I don’t mean an oatmeal box with a needle hole punched in it. The pinholes we and he made used precision drilled apertures, giving us an accurate f stop and allowing a calculated exposure.

It seemed appropriate to use a pinhole to photograph him.

For more of Bill’s photographs, go to https://www.billdurrence.com/index