Pinhole/Asshole (2011)

Munro's uncomfortably framed pinhole photographs comment on the explosion of mobile photography applications, such as Instagram and Hipstomatic. With the use of these applications, ‘popular’ styles are created effortlessly and often with little consciousness - made possible with the addition of filters, borders, colour enhancement and focal shifts. This accessibility and immediacy coupled with social networking opportunities presents the notion that anyone can be a photographer.

Pinhole/Asshole references the use of these applications questioning the level of photographer/user competence. Munro's intimate images and handmade matchbox cameras take us back to one of the origins of these effects - the pinhole style - now available in an instant capacity. The correlating scale of camera and resulting photographs link the product to their medium, drawing attention to process and functionality.

In the process of creating and positioning the cameras in inconspicuous places around his home, Munro becomes the observer as well as the observed, probing notions of privacy and exposure, intimacy and isolation. Capturing the image unmanned (due to prolonged exposure times), the camera consequently becomes an entity, as does the artist - establishing a relationship through methodology. The transformed matchboxes draw attention to the camera as an object rather than a 'feature' on a mobile device, pushing us to re-assess our interpretation of the familiar and the seemingly non-intrusive quality of mobile cameras.  The photographs point to the overwhelming display of public and self-obsession created through the increasing online opportunity to share ones daily activities.