Across locations in Cape Town and Johannesburg, the cameras were left to capture the movement of the sun over one to two weeks, making nature an active part of the creative process.
Rather than using conventional photography, the Solargraph Series relied on sunlight and long exposure to create the images.
Corona cans were transformed into functioning pinhole cameras and positioned at locations including Fourways, Fairy Glen Nature Reserve, Camps Bay, Green Point, Table Mountain and Chapman’s Peak.
Each camera was positioned to face north, with the creators considering the surrounding landscape and foreground before leaving the camera in place. Once set up, the cameras were left for one to two weeks, allowing the sun’s movement across the sky to form the final image.
Fari Sanyika, travel creator with Corona South Africa, said the process offered a contrast to the speed of modern image creation.
“In a world where anyone can generate an image in seconds, this project forced us to create something that couldn’t be rushed. That’s something people have lost touch with and it’s wonderful to get a little retro. Getting outside to carefully consider what you’re shooting is really the spirit of Living is Calling.”
The Solargraph concept was also applied to one of advertising’s most familiar formats. In Fourways, Johannesburg, Corona converted a billboard into a functioning pinhole camera, allowing the structure to capture the scene in front of it.
For 14 days, the billboard recorded the movement of the sun and produced a single solargraph. During the process, messaging on the billboard told passers-by what it was capturing, making the advertising space part of the experiment rather than simply a surface for an advertisement.
The result blurred the line between the advertising medium and the creative idea: the billboard was not only communicating the campaign, but physically creating the image at its centre.
The Solargraph Series was developed through a collaboration between creative agencies Boundless and Sunshine Gun, combining the technical process of pinhole photography with Corona’s existing brand platform.
Roanna Williams, co-chief creative officer at Boundless, said the concept connected the brand with the mechanics of an early photographic technology.
“When an idea arrives that is just the perfect expression of a brand you have to jump on it. The pinhole camera is photography’s oldest tech, and it operates in a way that it and Corona share – getting outside and celebrating the beauty of nature. Getting that convergence is rare and well worth making some magic out of.”
The First Thursday exhibition at Chimi marked the culmination of the Solargraph Series, bringing together the images produced through the project and giving audiences the opportunity to see how the campaign’s experimental approach translated into finished work.
The project forms part of Corona’s Living Is Calling platform, using a deliberately slow photographic process to encourage audiences to pay closer attention to the environments around them.
