The Sun, a pinhole, and a hefty price tag

Very keen-eyed visitors to the recent Cleveland National Art Awards show in Dunedin might have noticed a small, unassuming 4-by-5-inch photograph tucked away on a gallery wall - entry number 71.

A smudgy image showing a figure-eight shape hovering above some blurry trees. Nothing much to look at, really. But perhaps curious, they flipped through the catalogue and promptly fell over when they saw the outrageous price. Let me explain.

The image in question is an analemma, a picture showing the sun’s position at the same time each day for a year. Due to Earth’s tilted axis and its not-so-circular orbit, the sun doesn’t return to the same spot in the sky each day - unless you count weekends, when it’s always directly behind clouds. Instead, it traces a lovely elongated figure eight.

To capture this celestial doodle, I mounted a pinhole camera in my office window. Every day at 12.30 in winter and 1.30 in summer (it’s daylight saving’s fault), a tiny dot of sunlight etched itself onto a glass photographic plate. For a whole year. No lens. No electronics. Just physics and patience.

After 12 months, having carefully developed the precious image, I proudly entered what I believe to be the first ever complete southern hemisphere photographic analemma into a prestigious astronomy photography competition. It didn’t even get selected for consideration - though a bloke who caught the Moon rising behind a lighthouse won third prize. Fair enough, it was a lovely lighthouse.

So, I entered it in the Cleveland Art Awards. To my utter astonishment, it got in. Art judges apparently have better taste than astrophotography ones. Over several darkroom sessions (involving much muttering and chemical spills), I produced the final print. But there was a catch: just before entering, I realised that all entries had to be for sale. And I didn’t want to sell it. Did I mention this image took an entire year of my life to create?

Hence the outrageous price.

Is this science or art? As Einstein said, "The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious". I say it’s both. Though my camera was nudged before the year was up - so I’ll have to start over. Such is the life of a pinhole perfectionist.