This series focuses on those who take making of pictures a step or two further, creating their own photographic tools.

Santi Pladellorens, Barcelona, Spain

An industrial designer by trade, Santi Pladellorens has been tinkering with cameras since childhood. About a decade ago he began to modify and create his own cameras. His successes inspired him to turn his love of pinhole photography into a business. In 2015 he founded Analogueworks, a camera development and manufacturing company with a focus on design, and developed the Blink shutter—a shutter that he could mount on many different pinhole cameras. Constructed from aluminum, stainless steel and technical resins using CNC machining, it has interchangeable pinhole plates. The shutter system is released by mechanical cable and this design allows Pladellorens to make exposure in less than 1 second or to keep the shutter open for as many as several hours.

Having constructed Blink shutter, Pladellorens created Blink Colorpack, a pinhole camera made from a Polaroid Colorpack 100 for which he replaced the optical system with the Blink shutter and made the connecting pieces with 3D printing technology. The focal length is 75mm and the Blink shutter has a pinhole diameter of 0.3mm for an F-stop of 250. Modifying an existing camera allows Pladellorens to use the existing viewfinder for a more accurate framing. The Blink Colorpack uses feel apart film and Pladellorens prefers ISO 100 for color and ISO 3000 for black and white. The modification itself took only five days. Pladellorens continues to work on new camera modifications that allow him to continue experimenting with analogue photography, engineering, and design.

View more of Pladellorens’ work on his website.

Have you made or modified your own photographic equipment? Let us know at info@donttakepictures.com