Photography Atelier

CoCo McCabe

Prick of a Pin

As in dreams, in a world illuminated only through the prick of a pin questions abound. During the fall of 2023, I made a stack of pinhole cameras from duct tape and cardboard boxes and began to use them to explore the subject of dreams, never sure what would happen when a ray of light seared a fragment of memory. I didn’t know how thrilling those surprises could be when I started.

Artifacts from my life and environs take on new meaning for me in these pictures. Through the tiniest of portals, a slower world reveals itself, smudged and speckled, with a person in its midst. She lingers—on a beach, bundled in a chair, by the side of a beast—holding onto time. Can she really do that? In dreams, yes, long enough to make connections that are impossible to forge during the frenzy of a day.

I find solace in the lilt of that slowed time, past and present rocking together, even as some of the pictures that emerge surprise me by their darkness. Perhaps they shouldn’t: Dreams shed light on truths we can’t always see, and may not want to.

So does play. In these photographs I don wigs, belted coats, and strange hats. Costumed, I become a woodsman, a gamekeeper, a countrywoman anchored by a circle of chairs. But they’re empty. Why?

While the answer may still elude me, I have found deep satisfaction in the mechanics of making images with these simplest of tools. Long minutes for each exposure tick by: The wind blows and shakes my box; a cloud swallows the sun; my feet grow cold. I day dream. Through a pinhole, I have traveled to a place of new possibilities.

Artist Bio

Coco McCabe is a photographer in Ipswich, MA. She was a print journalist for many years before joining an international aid organization as a story-gatherer. While writing about communities in Africa, East Asia, and Central America, she started to photograph them as well. Now, McCabe is sticking closer to home with her camera. Glued to its viewfinder, she is working to understand and honor her corner of the world, where the stories are personal. She has also been exploring older photographic approaches, including cyanotype and gum bichromate printing. Her homemade pinhole camera collection now numbers 22.

Among the places McCabe has exhibited are the Panopticon Gallery in Boston, MA; the Rhode Island Center for Photographic Arts in Providence, RI; and the Griffin Museum of Photography in Winchester, MA. As a true believer in the importance of local journalism, McCabe also regularly shoots photographs for the weekly newspaper in her town.