10/03/2026
I love this!
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1AqUiCNHwW/?mibextid=wwXIfr
Wow! This photo took eight years to make!
In 2012, a fine art student named Regina Valkenborgh was experimenting with pinhole photography at the University of Hertfordshire's Bayfordbury Observatory in England. She took a simple 500ml Kopparberg cider can, lined it with photographic paper, poked a tiny hole in the side, and taped it to one of the observatory's telescopes. Then she forgot about it .
Eight years and one month later, in September 2020, the observatory's technical officer David Campbell was preparing to install some solar panels. He spotted the old can, almost opened it to throw it away, but decided to check inside first. What he found was something no one had ever seen before .
The photographic paper had captured 2,953 arced trails of the sun rising and setting over nearly a decade. The image shows the dome of the observatory's oldest telescope in the corner and, faintly visible, an atmospheric gantry that wasn't even built until 2017, halfway through the exposure .
Valkenborgh had tried this technique before, but moisture usually ruined the paper or it curled up. This one survived through pure luck, sitting in the same spot for eight years while the Earth orbited the sun eight times .
The previous record for longest exposure was held by German artist Michael Wesely at four years and eight months. Valkenborgh nearly doubled it .
She later said the image reminds her that human life is just a small part of something much bigger. A beer can, some paper, a tiny hole, and eight years of patience she didn't even know she had .
