My hobbies! – Hooman Esfandiari

Camera obscura!

The simple yet profound principle of how an image is projected through a pinhole onto light-sensitive film—central to film photography, photogrammetry, and computer vision—has fascinated me for as long as I can remember. It’s a concept that I hold close, both in my work and in my life. Cameras truly are my thing! I love working with them in any shape, size, modality, or format!

Examples from my collection.

In my free time, I enjoy experimenting with a variety of camera obscura—many of which were built decades before I was even born. Shooting with these vintage devices is far from hassle-free, but that’s part of the charm. After exposing the film, I develop it using special chemicals, and then digitize it to produce raster images. Sometimes, I take the fully analog route: projecting the negatives onto photo-sensitive paper to create physical prints—the kind of process you might remember from classic films.

Spending time outdoors is another passion of mine. Combine that with analog photography or filmmaking, and you’ll find me smiling, completely in my element. I’ve been fortunate to live in cities near breathtaking mountain ranges: Calgary and the Rockies, Vancouver and the Pacific Coast Mountains, Tehran and the Alborz, and Zurich with the Alps. Hiking in these places often means hauling vintage camera gear that weighs several pounds—but is it worth it? I’ll let the photos speak for themselves…