I had so much fun in today's session making a pin hole camera!
We began the session looking at a history into the pin hole camera and camera obscura which was really interesting. Abelardo Morell being one of them and below are some images of his work. Morell creates camera obscura in whole rooms. The resulting photographs are made inside these 'camera obscura' rooms using an camera on a tripod with a very long exposure.
Pin Hole cameras can be made from almost any object that is light tight. All you need is a lens and a way to place light sensitive material inside.
Obscura in latin means dark chamber. It is a term first used by the German astronomer Johannes Kepler in 1604. It was significant in the development of the modern camera and consists of a box or room with a tiny hole in one side. Light from an external environment is passed through the hole and hits the opposite surface in enclosure. The image is then reproduced on the surface, but rotated 180 degrees, so upside down so the colour scale and proportion remain constant. It was the first evidenced method of reproducing a scene in nature.
The purpose of the camera obscura was for experimental reasons and was first invented in 11th century and then improved upon in 16th century. It was used to capture live scenes for historical or artistic purposes used for tracing scenes. The newer models had better clarity and were also portable, these are known as the pinhole camera.
The Scientific principles behind it really interest me and both camera obscura and pinhole camera function on the same principles. The light rays cross when passing through the hole.
Light rays then reflect off the object and travel to the pinhole. The image is then projected on the opposite surface, upside down due to light rays crossing that are still in proportion. The pinhole allows for limited light to pass through. The smaller the hole, the sharper the images and if the image is too small then it will be blurry and dim due to diffraction.
The history behind the obscura began with Aristotle (322-384 BCE), a Greek Philosopher. He
understood the optical/light properties that created a pinhole camera and noted that, "sunlight travelling through small openings between the leaves of a tree, will create circular pathes of light on the ground" This was the first recorded recognition of camera obscura concept. Al-Kindi (801-973 AD) came next, he was an Arabic Philosopher and was the first to demonstrate knowledge of light properties involving small apertures and understood the concepts behind the reflected image being rotated 180 degrees. Ibn al-Haytham (965-1039 AD) a Muslim Philospher was the first to experiment with light passing through a pinhole. He used an arrangement of three candles to discover the relationship between the original object and the projected image. He was also considered to be inventor of camera obscura. Leonardo De Vinci (1452-1519) an Italian Inventor was the first to publish a clear description of the camera obscure in Codex Atlanticus in1502. He used the camera obscura model for artistic purposes such as tracing and was able to replicate natural scenes with great accuracy. De Vinci also studied the human eye and tried to duplicate it in camera obscure design. Next up was Giambattista della Porta (1535-1615), an Italian Scholar and he was said to have improved the camera obscura by introducing the use of the convex lens in camera and in later editions of his Magic Naturalis (1558-1589)
He compared the lens to the human eye to understand the light principles.
The last of the16th century artists to develop to camera obscura was Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675), a Dutch Painter who was famous for extensive detail. Vermeer was said to have used camera obscura to trace images and preserve proportion and was one of the first use camera obscura to its full potential. In the 18th Century developments were then made by Robert Boyle & Robert Hooke who made it more portable. These were extensively used by amateur artists while on their travels, but also utilised by professionals. (James,2015)
References:
King James,2015. Camera Obscura & Pinhole Cameras.[online].Prezi. Available from: https://prezi.com/1fluj_abvwsv/camera-obscura-pinhole-cameras/ [Accessed:20 December 2019]
The Process
I used a template that had already been drawn up, stuck it down onto the foam board with prit stick making sure there were no bubbles in the paper.
Cutting through both the paper and foam board down the black lines and then scoring only a few millimetres through the red lines so the board was easily bendable.
Once the scoring and cutting was complete I folded the red lines and cut out the hole in the middle for the lens.
Glueing the sides with a glue gun together was tricky, I had to make sure to use enough glue so it would stick, but not so much it would show up. I made sure I did this on a cutting mat to save the table underneath from burning with glue.
Once it was stuck in place I put a small rectangular piece of aluminium and stuck it with black electrical tape to the inside and put a tiny pin hole in it.
Once the box was glued together, I then folded and glued the lid.
I made small cut outs of the what was left to make a small shelf so the camera wouldn't tip forward when sat on a surface.
I was then ready to start taking photographs! It was a really exciting process. Once the film was in the box we had to shut it quickly to make sure the film didn't get ruined. I went outside and sat with my first image exposed for 4 minutes. I timed it on my phone and once the timer went off I pulled the shutter over the pinhole and went inside to process the image.
In the dark room I lifted my film out of the camera and loaded up another piece of film to get going with once I had developed the first.
I gently agitated it in the developer using tongs. We had 1 tong per tray and 3 trays.
Fishing it out letting it tip off the excess water I then placed it into the stop bath for 30 secs.
Then into the fix which fixes the paper from being light sensitive anymore and this was for 1 minute. Once out of the fix I took it outside to look at it and check the exposure. A problem I encountered during this process was that my images weren't as contrasted as I would have liked. Therefore If I did it again I would leave them in the developer for longer. To take this further I would like to make a big pin hole camera and a do series of images of people, emotions and dream scenes. Another idea that came to mind was to make a bigger pinhole camera out of a piece of furniture.
Below are my final images. I am pretty happy with how they turned out. They have all have a very vintage feel to them. The whole style of the all the images really links back to my theme of mental health as they all have a depressed feeling to them.
The one below was the first I tried, leaving the pin hole uncovered for 4 mins, this was also to test the exposure. I was quite happy with the exposure but I could have left it in the developer for longer to give it a little more contrast. The silhouette of the tree against the sky looks quite creepy and atmospheric. The fact that the image is blurred slightly due to the wind I feel adds a sense of motion to the image. I put the camera on the wall to give a perspective of being taken into the image. I like to use this low level shooting as a way of getting round my subject being in the middle of unflattering or dull surroundings. My subject was the tree and it gives an out of focus foreground and background which makes the tree really jump out of the picture. The composition of the wall leading to the tree is also nice in this image.
I tried the same low level shoot in the image below but this time with a different background. I used the same exposure time of 4 minutes, however the lighting was a lot brighter. There is almost a double exposure of the trees in this image which makes it look quite ghostly and eery. Again, this image lacks contrast due to developer time being low.
With the image below I wanted to try photographing my face. I sat underneath a balcony with my back against the wall, using my knees as props for my arms holding the camera still. After developing this image I realised that sitting under a balcony which was quite low on light on an overcast day wasn't the best idea. I would need to be shooting with my face directly in the sunlight. Even though this image didn't turn out the way I had planned, I am still happy with it as I look like a ghost. You can just see my hat and the outline of my face. This one definitely has a depressing feel to it. I had to keep the camera really still and had to stay still looking at the camera with the same facial expression for 6 minutes which was quite hard. I wanted to try this again but with more light hitting my face.
I have shot the house below before for the David Hockney joiners experiment. The house has an eery run down feel to it as it is abandoned and I felt it could lend itself quite well to the style of imagery the pinhole creates. What worked well about this image was the netting in front of the house. I used the low level shooting technique again and rested the camera on the netting. The composition of the netting flowing through the image from each side works really well. It would have been even better if I had left it in the developer for longer to give more contrast, however it would have maybe taken away the see-through effect that is on the netting which worked quite well.
Having another go at the image of my face, I sat with my face in as much sunlight as possible however there wasn't much left as it was a winter afternoon and the light was fading fast. Still, I managed to get more of the background and my face in it this time. I love the way the photograph has burnt slightly on the bottom, I'm not really sure why but it adds to the image. It make it look really old fashioned.
For the last attempt whilst there was still some light I tried the camera back on the wooden bench but facing the opposite way to see if I could get a different aspect. I am happy with the result however, like the others, wish I had left it in the developer longer. The subject matter is also lacking in this one, unlike the others.
To take this project further I would like to make a bigger pinhole camera out of furniture, experimenting with different materials to make it light tight and photo sensitive paper in various sizes. Looking and researching more into the work of Anna Cady who makes pinhole cameras out of large objects.
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