Verity Hollywood Solargraph photography project

Press Release:

Staring at the sun has always been dangerous and compelling - and something of a technological challenge for astronomers and photographers alike.

But there were no fancy filters or space-age lenses for young photographer Verity Hollywood, from Newtownards, Northern Ireland, whose Solargraph project has produced some stunning results.

This beautiful and eerie image of the sun taken in Scotland is one of dozens she has shot with the most rudimentary pinhole cameras.

Using long exposures from home-made pinhole cameras, the 22-year old, tracked the sun for weeks on a single exposure, for her final-year Interactive Arts degree project at Manchester Metropolitan University.

The student sent dozens of these cameras to people across the world, telling them to leave them facing the sun for weeks and then to post them back to her.

“I’ve been experimenting with these cameras all year and I find it fascinating that something so lo-fi and technologically insignificant can capture the movement of a universal element such as the sun.”

Verity took her first pinhole sun-tracker in Rovaniemi, Finland while on an Erasmus study trip, and has since received cameras back from all over world - Japan, USA, Ireland, France and Russia.

More information about the Manchester Metropolitan University including how to apply, please visit the website.