Out of the inky shadows lurks a city that looks vaguely familiar, but it doesn’t look quite like you remembered it—and it came from a cardboard box. For the past 25 years, Stefan Killen has been photographing New York with nothing but a pinhole camera. “It’s literally a cardboard box wrapped in black plastic and electrical tape,” he says about the design. “I like this rinky-dink cardboard box up against New York City. It’s about as extreme a contrast as you can get." Out of that box comes a dark, dreamy New York that’s miles away from the city we all know.
After studying drawing and painting in college, a friend gave him a pinhole camera, a lens-less box that directly exposes an image onto medium-format film and creates rich, shadowy images. “It’s like you press this magic button, and this character appears—whether it’s a person or a bridge, that’s mythological," Killen explains. "It has that primitive quality to it, and I like that there’s a real element of chance.” He began by shooting New York bridges and streetscapes, drawn to the tourist-friendly corners of the city like Times Square and Coney Island. “I’m interested in that Disney-like part of the city but pulling out the weirdness in it,” he says. About a year ago, after years of exploring the streets, his focus began to shift from New York’s landscape to its people.
This shift from atmospheric to personal has been a gradual one for Killen. “Years ago I was focusing on bridges because I didn’t want to deal with people. Now I find the element of a person much more interesting than something like a bridge.” He immersed himself in portraiture, and this year photographed over 60 of his friends and family in a marathon session on his birthday. These soft, eerie portraits blur the line between portraiture and abstraction, creating something entirely different. “I like the psychological aspect of portrait. There’s something about it where you get all this demented, dark, moody quality that I really enjoy.”
With over two decades of work under his belt, Killen has become an authority on pinhole photography. He has helped develop and run a workshop teaching city kids pinhole photography at Photoville, a major photography festival held every September at Brooklyn Bridge Park. On top of running his graphic design firm, he is working on two books of his New York work, and is gearing up for another marathon portrait session early next year.
"At this point," he says, "I’m really attached to New York City as my subject.”![]()
All photos courtesy of Stefan Killen
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After studying drawing and painting in college, a friend gave him a pinhole camera, a lens-less box that directly exposes an image onto medium-format film and creates rich, shadowy images. “It’s like you press this magic button, and this character appears—whether it’s a person or a bridge, that’s mythological," Killen explains. "It has that primitive quality to it, and I like that there’s a real element of chance.” He began by shooting New York bridges and streetscapes, drawn to the tourist-friendly corners of the city like Times Square and Coney Island. “I’m interested in that Disney-like part of the city but pulling out the weirdness in it,” he says. About a year ago, after years of exploring the streets, his focus began to shift from New York’s landscape to its people.
This shift from atmospheric to personal has been a gradual one for Killen. “Years ago I was focusing on bridges because I didn’t want to deal with people. Now I find the element of a person much more interesting than something like a bridge.” He immersed himself in portraiture, and this year photographed over 60 of his friends and family in a marathon session on his birthday. These soft, eerie portraits blur the line between portraiture and abstraction, creating something entirely different. “I like the psychological aspect of portrait. There’s something about it where you get all this demented, dark, moody quality that I really enjoy.”
With over two decades of work under his belt, Killen has become an authority on pinhole photography. He has helped develop and run a workshop teaching city kids pinhole photography at Photoville, a major photography festival held every September at Brooklyn Bridge Park. On top of running his graphic design firm, he is working on two books of his New York work, and is gearing up for another marathon portrait session early next year.
"At this point," he says, "I’m really attached to New York City as my subject.”
All photos courtesy of Stefan Killen
