Differential and total cross sections are calculated for charged pion photoproduction and radiative pion capture in flight close to threshold [Formula: see text], mainly for a target of 12C. At the lower energies, selective bound state excitation may be studied in photo-production since the giant resonance is kinematically suppressed here. Pion absorption is found to increase considerably with decreasing pion energy due to a 1/νπ factor, and it shows a dip in the forward direction except for the 1+ state. Distortion and absorption effects on the pion are calculated, and are estimated to lead to only a small reduction of the cross section in the energy region considered.