Battling the Storm: A Pinhole Adventure on the South Downs
Saturday, October 19th—Storm Ashley was unleashing its fury across the UK, lashing the country with 70-80 mph winds in some places. On the South Coast where I was, the winds raged at a fierce 30-40 mph, accompanied by relentless sheets of rain. It wasn’t exactly a day for a pleasant walk, but it was the perfect time for a battle—with a pinhole camera in tow.
There’s a certain madness to venturing out with a pinhole camera in the middle of a storm, but it comes with its own rebellious logic. No lens to fog up, no electronics to short-circuit, just a light-tight box and a pinprick of an aperture. I loaded my trusty Mia 6x12 with Fomapan 100 film, pushing it to 400 to steal back some seconds from the exposure times. I wrapped extra layers of gaffer tape around the camera’s seams—light-proof didn’t mean waterproof, and there was no telling how much of the storm would try to seep inside.
Location: Butt Brow, South Downs.
As I reached Butt Brow, the rain paused as if sizing me up, a temporary reprieve that ended almost the moment I set up for the first shot. The downpour came roaring back, hammering down with a vengeance. I was soaked to the bone in minutes, but stubbornness kept me from retreating. I cinched my hood tighter, my clothes already clinging wetly to my skin, and squared off with the storm. If the day was determined to break me, I was just as determined to make a photograph of it—come hell or high water.
To be honest, my mind wasn’t exactly focused. The storm had a way of overwhelming every thought that wasn’t about the bone-chilling cold or the water seeping through every layer of clothing. My "waterproof" coat had long since given up pretending to keep me dry, and my gear was as soaked as I was.
The pinhole camera might have been impervious to the rain, but I wasn’t.
The first few exposures were a under exposed and took a bit of work to bring out the details afterwards as my light meter was set wrong more than once, One shot I didn’t even bother to take a reading—I just pointed the camera in the general direction of the storm and hoped for a miracle. There were times when actual photography felt like an afterthought; it was hard to think about framing a shot when the wind was clawing at my clothes, and my hands were stiff with cold also trying to film it at the same time for my Youtube channel.
But then I saw it—a lone tree perched definitely on the edge of the downs, its silhouette stark against the roiling grey sky. Sheets of rain poured down in the distance. There was a certain beauty in the chaos, a shot that demanded to be taken. It was as if the tree, like me, was standing its ground against Ashley’s wrath.
A short walk from the lone tree, another scene caught my eye—a barbed wire fence leading toward a stile. With the pinhole camera’s infinite depth of field, I knew I could draw the eye along that line leading to the fence and stile. The heavy rain was still falling like a thick veil over the landscape, draping the scene in a muted, silvery haze.
I set up the shot quickly, fumbling with the exposure time the rain was now heavy and the wind tugged at my jacket like an impatient child. In the end, the photograph came out more underexposed than I’d hoped, a shadow of the drama unfolding before me. But there was something there—a mood, a feeling—that makes me want to try again. This is a shot that I wish to revisited on another day, perhaps when the sky wasn’t at war with itself.
I found a small spot of shelter, tucked away from the wind but not the relentless rain. By now, the downpour had reached a new level of intensity, drumming against the ground with a fury that seemed to soak the world in grey. As I scanned the landscape, another tree caught my eye.
I tried a few different compositions, shifting my position, framing and re-framing, before finally settling on one that felt right. But the rain was coming down so hard that my judgment faltered. In the chaos, I inexplicably set the exposure for just two seconds—a decision that left the shot drastically underexposed.
Despite that misstep, there was something about the composition that I loved. The brooding atmosphere, the way the weather draped a veil over the scene, gave it a raw, untamed mood. I knew I’d have to come back on another wild day and give it another go, when the sky was just as angry and the rain maybe not as heavy. There was a photograph waiting there—I just hadn’t captured it yet.
Sticking to the sheltered lower slopes of the Downs, I pressed on, heading toward a favorite gate of mine—a spot I’d visited and photographed countless times before. There’s something timeless about that gate, the way it frames the landscape beyond, opening up to a sweeping view that seems to stretch on forever. Today, though, the view was transformed, cloaked in a haze of rain that was pouring mercilessly across the county, hammering down like an unbroken wall of water.
I crouched low, tucking myself back into the brush for a bit of cover as I set up my composition. The familiar gate stood defiantly in the storm, its weather-beaten wood darkened by the downpour.
Just a short walk from the gate, a tree I’d never noticed before suddenly stood out against the storm. It was stripped bare, its branches skeletal and reaching wide like twisted fingers, clinging to the very edge of the Downs. It had a kind of lonely defiance, as though it had weathered countless storms and would endure this one too. I felt an instant connection to it—this tree might just be my new favorite.
Getting to it, I stumbled over a barbed wire fence, as I couldn't face to what seemed a long walk in this weather to the gate, circling the tree a couple of times, trying to find the right angles. I experimented with different compositions, weighing the weight of each shot as the rain came down even harder. My clothes clung to me like a second skin.
I used my last two shots on the tree—one from the side, capturing the stark outline of its branches, and another from just behind, looking out over the landscape it watched over. The heavy rain blurred the distance into a misty veil, giving the scene a haunting, almost dreamlike quality. Despite the cold and wet I couldn’t help but feel satisfied. I’d found something special in that tree, and I knew I’d be back again, on another wild day, to see how it fared against the elements.
As I trudged back, soaked to the bone and exhausted, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of accomplishment. The storm had pushed me to my limits—testing my patience, my perseverance, and my ability to make art in the chaos. Storm Ashley might have battered the coast and driven most people indoors, but it also brought a rawness to the landscape that I’d never seen before. The Downs, usually so calm and familiar, had been transformed into a place of wild, untamed beauty.
The photographs I took weren’t perfect; some were underexposed and others rushed. But they were honest, born from a struggle against the elements. For me, that’s what pinhole photography is all about—capturing a moment not just with a camera, but with the effort it took to get there, the fight to bring a fleeting scene into focus.
I’ll definitely be back to Butt Brow, to that lone tree, the favorite gate, and now my new favorite—those bare branches reaching out over the edge of the Downs. There’s something addictive about braving the storm to find those fleeting moments of beauty. Sometimes, it takes a day like this to remind you why you pick up a camera in the first place. So, when the weather turns foul again, you know exactly where to find me—standing in the rain, wrestling with my pinhole camera, chasing the next wild shot.
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