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Kelly Angood – The Pop-Up Pinhole Project

posted by Lo Parkin May 17, 2013

Designer Kelly Angood wanted a ‘real’ medium format camera, but knew she couldn’t afford one, consequently she dealt with it the only way she knew how and made one! After setting up a page on kickstarter to gain funding Kelly has spread the world about her beautiful prototype camera (screen printed by the wonderful Joe Vass) that creates amazing pin-hole images and the best thing about it is you make it all yourself! With the project finishing by 1:30pm on Saturday every last donation counts in the hope of developing the project further and expanding into educational workshops for kids and teenagers and the possibility of more exciting cameras. I caught up with Kelly to find out more about the project.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/kellyangood/the-pop-up-pinhole-project
http://kickstarterpinholediary.tumblr.com
http://www.kellyangood.co.uk

The Pop-Up Pinhole Project Portraits from Kelly Angood on Vimeo.

– You made your first pinhole camera two years ago, what is it about pinhole photography that encouraged your initial interest?

“I’ve always been into photography (as so many are) but what I really love about pinhole photography is the ability to go right back and learn about the fundamentals of photography. We live in such a hyper-digital world that sometimes it’s nice to go right back to basics. I also love the experimental and sometimes almost Victorian quality of the photos”

– What made you want to design the product to encourage people to make the camera themselves and what did you / do you think other people can learn by making the camera themselves?

“The project has a real DIY ideology and I think you learn more about the process of pinhole photography by being able to see the process though from beginning to end- starting with making the camera and ending up in the darkroom (if you want to that is). I hope giving people the ability to see that process through will allow them to experiment with pinhole photography”

– I love how you’ve developed The Videre into an accessible community project getting people involved with both the process and sharing their photos in the online gallery, was it your intention all along to create an interactive concept or did that idea develop as you made the camera?

“When I made my first camera the project was very inward looking as a personal project at university, but as I started sharing plans and camera online and started developing the Videre it became much more outward looking and it seemed like quite a natural progression to make it more community-minded.
For me it’s really important for people to be able share their ideas and results. Seeing the results come in is one of the best parts of the project for me”

– I think it’s important to commend you on how beautiful the design of the camera is, how long did it take you to come up with it?

“Thanks! I took inspiration for a history of amazing cameras and I’d had the rough idea for The Videre on the back burner for a while but it took about 3 weeks to finalise the design”

– The projects had great success and you’ve doubled your £15,000 funding goal on kickstarter, did you expect the project to do so well and why do you think it’s generated so much interest?

“To be honest I had expectations that I wouldn’t meet my funding goal!
I think that technology has made photography the norm- everyone carries a camera around with them these days in the form of their phone which has allowed photography much less niche than was considered say 10 years ago. Also, lots of people (myself included) live in a massively digitally minded world and sometimes it’s nice to have an excuse to get away from the screen”

– What are your plans / hopes / goals for the future?

“I have plans to run workshops with kids and teenagers, initially in London, but hopefully elsewhere too. For me it’s important to see this project not just as a product, but as an enabler too. I’m also planning to design new cameras and create limited edition print runs with London based illustrators, hopefully in time for Christmas.”