Solargraphy
Solargraphy – Long Exposure Sun Trails Captured with Pinhole Cameras Over Weeks and Months
Fine Art Solargraphs Made with Pinhole Cameras
Long Exposure Pinhole Photography Showing Sun Trails Over Time
Archival Solargraph Prints Revealing Light and Impermanence
183 Sunsets Over Georgian Bay, 2023
Six-month pinhole exposure over Georgian Bay, tracing the sun’s arc from summer to winter solstice.
A Collaboration with the Sun
Solargraphy is an alternative photographic process that captures the sun’s path across the sky over days, weeks, and months using a custom-built pinhole camera and light-sensitive black and white photo paper. Each exposure records its rising and falling arc as it gradually shifts with the seasons due to the Earth’s axial tilt and elliptical orbit. Cloud cover causes missing, faint, or broken tracks. The result is a single visual record of time and celestial motion that we cannot otherwise see.
What emerges are vivid, gestural photographs shaped by the sun itself. Colour shifts occur from extreme overexposure and the chemical makeup of the photo paper. Additional variations come from moisture, temperature changes, and occasional organic intrusions, such as mould, insects, or water. Part art, part science, part chaos, every solargraph is a one-of-a-kind collaboration between nature, material, and time.
Influenced by the Buddhist concept of anicca, the understanding that all things are impermanent, my work embraces change not as loss, but as a generative force — a source of possibility, awareness, and connection. In solargraphy, impermanence is not an abstract idea, but an active participant in the image-making process. It requires patience and surrender. Unlike conventional photography, you must give up control and yield to whatever time reveals. The result is not a frozen moment, but a document of transformation, shaped by what passed, changed, and can never be repeated.
Each image holds within it everything that happened under the sun during its long exposure.
— Bret Culp
Eclipse over Port Maitland, 2024 –one-day solargraph of the 2024 total eclipse above Port Maitland, Ontario
Total Eclipse #2, 2024 –solargraph of sun arcs over Georgian Bay from the second 184-day set
183 Sunsets Over Georgian Bay, 2023 –solargraph showing 183 evenings of sunset over Georgian Bay
183 Days, Toronto, 2023 –six-month solargraph of daily sunlight over Toronto
228 Days, Toronto, 2023 –solargraph capturing sun arcs above Toronto’s Old Eastern Avenue Bridge
183 Days, Oakville #1, 2023 –solargraph showing seasonal light above The Weather Network, Oakville (Set 1)
183 Days, Oakville #2, 2023 –long-exposure solargraph above Oakville’s Weather Network HQ (Set 2)
183 Days, Oakville #3, 2023 –solargraph from the third Oakville exposure in the 183-day series
163 Days, Vancouver, 2022 –pinhole solargraph made in Yaletown showing 163 days of sunlight
90 Days, Toronto Harbour, 2021 –solargraph tracking daylight change from winter solstice to spring equinox
169 Days, Wyebridge, 2020 –solargraph showing sun movement over Wyebridge in mid-2020
169 Days, Perkinsfield, 2020 –solargraph showing summer light over Perkinsfield, Ontario
30 Days, Elmvale Drive-Inn, 2020 –solargraph capturing short daylight arcs above Elmvale Drive-Inn
30 Days, Tiny Marsh, 2020 –solargraph of winter sun arcs over Tiny Marsh, Ontario
One Year, Georgian Bay, 2018 –365-day pinhole solargraph showing a full year of solar movement
29 Days, Georgian Bay, 2017 –solargraph showing late-summer sun movement over Georgian Bay
228 Days, Georgian Bay, 2017 –long-duration solargraph showing seasonal arcs over Georgian Bay in 2017
13 Days, Toronto, 2017 –brief winter solargraph made in Toronto near the holidays
126 Days, Toronto, 2016 –solargraph showing seasonal change in Toronto from summer to fall
113 Days, Toronto, 2016 –springtime solargraph from Toronto capturing seasonal sun arcs
162 Days, Orangeville, 2016 –solargraph showing half-year sunlight change above Orangeville
180 Days, Georgian Bay, 2016 –six-month solargraph of solar arcs over Georgian Bay
154 Days, Toronto, 2015 –long-exposure solargraph made in Toronto in 2015
184 Days #2, Georgian Bay, 2015 –solargraph of sun arcs over Georgian Bay from the second 184-day set
184 Days #1, Georgian Bay, 2015 –first 184-day exposure of the sun’s arc over Georgian Bay
127 Days, Georgian Bay, 2014 –pinhole solargraph showing early winter sunlight over Georgian Bay
Bret Culp interviewed by The Weather Network about solargraphy—capturing the sun’s path across the sky over six months using pinhole cameras.
Watch What is Solargraphy, a short video from The Weather Network’s Out of This World series — a collaboration between meteorologist and science writer Scott Sutherland and myself exploring the art and science of solargraphy.
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The Weather Network’s “Out Of This World – Solargraphy: Capturing the Sun’s Journey in an Image.”
Music [0:00]
Scott [0:08]
From summer solstice to winter solstice in 2023, three cameras on the roof of the Weather Network each captured a six-month record of the Sun’s motion across the sky. I spoke to photographer Bret Culp about this process known as solargraphy.Bret [0:21]
Solargraphy is an alternative photography process. A normal photograph is typically exposed for a fraction of a second. Solargraphy is about capturing the movement of the Sun through the sky over days, weeks, months and longer, sometimes. This is a simple tube, as you can see, with a pinhole in it. So it’s really pinhole photography. When the light goes in, or the image comes in through the pinhole, it actually, what’s behind there is a piece of chemical light sensitive black and white photo paper. And the way the pinhole works is that the image is flipped, so the bottom [of the camera] is actually the top of what it sees out here.Scott [1:05]
Right. We’re basically creating a record, then, I guess, of over, well, for this, for six months, because we came here six months ago, on the summer solstice and set these up. So we’ve created, we’ve actually captured, captured six months worth of the Sun passing through the sky, recording clear days.Bret [1:27]
What it does capture, as you were saying, from the summer solstice, is the position where the Sun is highest in the sky, of course, and today, on the winter solstice, it’ll be the lowest. So, it captures that whole range. And the reason that it [the Sun position] changes is because the Earth has a tilt and it’s orbiting around the Sun. So there’s all of that science as well. I like to say that these things [solargraphs] are part art, part science and part chaos.Scott [1:52]
You can’t just open this up and pull out a picture. So, how would you get the actual image out of this?Bret [1:58]
Because it’s such an extreme over-exposure, you don’t develop it, otherwise it would go completely black. But you actually take it out, and it’s still light sensitive; you put it on a flatbed scanner–a computer scanner. You scan it. As you’re scanning it, you’re destroying it. So you get one shot. The resulting scan is a negative, and it’s mirrored, so you invert it, and then you flip it, and then you do a little bit of colour correction, or whatever, and typically you see these very colourful, unique images. The Chaos part of this is that sitting out there for a very extended period of time with extreme over-exposure, you end up with these very colourful images from black and white light-sensitive chemical photo paper. It’s got to do with the different kinds of photo paper, and they still make that stuff, not as much as they used to, but they still make it. The different chemical makeup of those different papers results in different casts or different colour tones as well. And then, you know, based on the temperature fluctuations during that period of time, whether it freezes, how humid it is during that time. If mould or bugs even, can get into the camera, water, whatever. It’s all part of it; it all adds to the surprise. And it’s all part of the fun. I love the surprise of this. It kind of gone in photography, right? That idea of we don’t know we’re going to get till we take it home and develop. Well, that’s what you get with this. And as you were saying, in that six-month period of time, you also get a chance to see six months of weather because where there isn’t a track, it was a cloudy day, similar to what it is today. And clearly where there’s a track, a sun track, it was a sunny day. And then you have the mixed day. So you have a record of six months of weather in this thing, making these things completely one-of-a-kind unique as well. 50% art, 50% science, 50% chaos.Scott [4:06]
[Laughter]
Very cool. Thanks, Bret.Bret [4:09]
Thank you.
As Featured in The Weather Network’s Science Coverage
Read Scott Sutherland’s article, Solargraphy: The Art, Science, and Chaos of Capturing the Sun’s Path in the Sky, published by The Weather Network. It accompanies the video above and features several of my solargraphs.