Jul 29, 2010  •  In NYC, Photography

The Longest Photographic Exposures in History

German photographer Michael Wesely specializes in long exposure photography. Using a self-built pinhole camera, his photographs have captured the light of its subjects for up to three years.

In 2001, he was invited by the Museum of Modern Art in New York to capture the re-development of their building. He set up four cameras in four different corners and proceeded to record the destruction and re-building of the MoMA until 2004 — that’s an exposure of 34 months!

With a surreal and almost eery quality about them, I find these photos to be hauntingly beautiful and ghost-like. I feel inspired to take some extremely long exposure shots myself, but I’m pretty sure that J would have a cow if I were to leave the camera out for months (or even years) in the same exact place.

Link, via Neatorama.

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2 Responses to “The Longest Photographic Exposures in History”

  1. Jen says:

    Wow, that’s inspiring! With regard to leaving your camera out, you can buy pinhole cameras for cheap and you won’t really care that much about leaving them outside. I wonder if you would need some super specialized equipment to leave the aperature open that long. crazy!

  2. Stephanie says:

    That is fantastic. What a cool print that would be to have up on a wall. Hmmm…

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