Posts Tagged ‘Camera obscura’
FOUND: A camera obscura in a storage shed box
An image is found in a packing box
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So today we were planning a day of shedding in our storage shed. We donned our dust masks and glasses, and cut through the five years of dust on many boxes and began to move our precious things into protective packing boxes.
Just as we were getting into the rhythm of this challenging chore we found something amazing in one of the empty boxes…
From that moment we stopped all work…
What follows is an impromptu document of performance we made in this remarkable image discovery. Found within an ordinary box – in a dusty storage shed – somewhere in the rows of storage sheds where we and others store our forgotten treasures…
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A video featuring the performance …
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Here are some images and a video on the refinement of the image by using other boxes and a pair of gloves to mask-out the light admitting aperture to around 3cm square.
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A video revealing the storage shed packing box set-up …
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OTHER COOPER+SPOWART CAMERA OBSCURA POSTS:
A collection of camera obscura works
https://wotwedid.com/2013/10/26/camera-obscura-2000-2020-in-hotels-and-other-places/
A porthole camera obscura on the Spirit of Tasmania
https://wotwedid.com/2019/01/11/2018-field-studies-camera-obscura-spirit-of-tasmania-porthole/
A gallery camera obscura
https://wotwedid.com/2016/11/14/maud-gallery-camera-obscura-for-one-day-only/
Our Tarago CarCamera Obscura
https://wotwedid.com/2016/05/13/ode-to-tarago-carcamera-obscura/
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Until the next obscura reveals itself …
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MAUD GALLERY CAMERA OBSCURA – for one day only
The Maud Gallery window to become a Camera Obscura
As a final event for Maud’s Festival of the Darkroom on November 26 between 12.00 Noon and 4.00pm we worked with Louis Lim to convert the Maud Gallery front room into a public Camera Obscura. We invited members of the Brisbane photo community to join with us for a look back to the origins of photography.
What follows are photos from the event…
Set-up day with Louis Lim, Ana Paula Estrada and Gillian Jones
The Maud camera obscura team – Louis Lim, Doug+Vicky PHOTO: Louis Lim
The Maud camera obscura team – Louis Lim, Doug+Vicky with Maud Director Irena Prikryl. PHOTO: Louis Lim
Outside looking in ––– The Maud Gallery Camera Obscura
Camera obscura viewers sitting on the couch – note two holes… PHOTO: Louis Lim
Inside the Maud Gallery Camera Obscura
Inside the Maud Gallery Camera Obscura
The Maud Gallery toilet was also converted into a camera obscura
The camera obscura in the Maud toilet PHOTO: Louis Lim
Vicky standing before the two pinhole projection – someone came in and let the light in…
Photographer Neil while making a photograph becomes a camera obscura imaging surface…
Gallery Director Irena takes a tea break…
Cooper+Spowart: 16 years of Camera Obscura Collaborations
In our collaborative work, we are interested in both the physical construct and cultural conventions that inform and shape us. This includes the common rituals and structures that surround, support and transport us in our everyday lives. In this work we have extended the context of documentary photographic methodology to include the narrative potential of the camera obscura and architectural projections.
Bedroom Camera Obscura 2000 (Y2K)
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Avochie Bathroom Camera Obscura
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In the camera obscura work the viewer’s perception of the everyday is spatially challenged. The structures that can form camera obscura are everywhere, but some spaces present themselves as clearly suitable for the making. This could be a city office, a motel room, a country bathroom or even a car. Our work attempts to contextualize the experience of the camera obscura within a concept, space or site. Upon entering the darkened space, the viewer is initially displaced, as the familiar image of the everyday is dim and unrecognizable. Then after time spent in the camera obscura, the image becomes clearer and the familiar is re-established ultimately resulting in a relocation of the observer’s awareness of place.
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City of Dreams – Ibis Hotel sunrise over Sydney
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The Travelodge camera obscura 2008
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Some background on the set-up for the Travelodge camera obscura:
Simple black garbage bags and some black electrical tape from the local 711 store. An aperture cut from a ‘found’ piece of aluminium – size around 8mm … we don’t use sophisticated glass lenses – these are direct light projections. A digital camera bares witness to our experience by capturing the image of the camera obscura projection.
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Blacking out the room
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We were watching TV …
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OUR MOST RECENT CAMERA OBSCURA: ORPHEUS ISLAND BEACH TENT
(A collaborative event with John de Rooy, Spyder Displays and the Orpheus Is Photo Workshop)
Our Spyder Camera Obscura
A DUO View of the scene and the Camera Obscura image
TO VIEW OTHER CAMERA OBSCURA WORK BY COOPER AND SPOWART SEE THE LINKS
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Our Website:
http://www.cooperandspowart.com.au/4_PROJECTS/RoomCameraObscura-Project.html
Our car converted into a camera obscura and driven across Australia:
http://www.cooperandspowart.com.au/4_PROJECTS/CarCamera-Project.html
Two New Zealand Camera Obscuras in the the Queenstown Rydges Hotel:
https://wotwedid.wordpress.com/2012/05/07/two-new-zealand-camera-obscuras/
A public Camera Obscura performance and live video:
https://wotwedid.wordpress.com/2013/04/22/camera-obscura-pinhole-event-foto-frenzy-a-report/
YouTube videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyA5QP-mX-E
A camera obscura at the Queenstown Centre for Creative Photography:
https://wotwedid.wordpress.com/2012/05/07/camera-obscura-qccp/
A World Pinhole Day Camera Obscura at Mt Barney:
https://wotwedid.wordpress.com/2013/04/29/world-pinhole-photography-day-our-contribution/
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Closing off the hole in the Travelodge Hotel camera obscura
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© 2013 Victoria Cooper and Doug Spowart for 16 Years of Camera Obscuras Project
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
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ODE TO TARAGO CARCAMERA OBSCURA
Just turned 500,000 kms on the Hay Plains near Balranald, NSW
Today I was just remembering when I first bought
the Tarago as a new car…
It was a smooth car/van in 1986 even though it was a 1985 model.
… I was its sole owner
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Although Doug was a major driver and sharer of the running costs
then there are all those kilometers we three have travelled
Doug, Me and Tarago….
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We have travelled, camped, forded flooded creeks, pushed through tracks that only
four wheel drives should go, crossed the sea (Tasmania), been invaded by possums,
carried our art, groceries, garden waste, house moving, friends, family,
and even a tour group of Japanese tourists,
Dodged kangaroos except for one that jumped into the side of us,
driven through bull dust without getting bogged,
though – monsoonal rains,
locust plagues, searing heat,
snow, sleet and frost, wild winds,
And beautiful spring days …
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Dodged crazy drivers that were talking on mobile phones while simultaneously writing
in a book resting on the steering wheel!!!!
And then there was that really big spider that walked across the windscreen while I was driving…
was it inside or outside – not sure where that ended up?
The Tarago survived break-ins back in the Imagery Gallery days in Fish Lane …
There were the breakdowns… we all have so why not CarCamera Obscura Tarago?
But Treg… you always got her going again – Thank you so much …
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Tarago suffered our singing along with the old cassette tapes
of the Travelling Wilburys, George Harrison and Pink Floyd
We planned, we imagined, we argued, we laughed, we cried, we did many things
We ate fish and chips on the Great Ocean Road …
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We made the car into a camera obscura! And drove it across Australia …
Just as we celebrated 630,000 km …
the journey for our Tarago was to end….
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We said our farewells – April 10, 2016
The Tarago CarCamera Obscura will be auctioned we were told…
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A PICTURE STORY OF OUR TARAGO CARCAMERA OBSCURA
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Wooli Camera Obscura with the Tarago
TRAVELLING LIGHT-Invitation from the Qld Centre for Photography show
630,000 km – the final reading
Frontpiece for the Photospace exhibition at the Australian National University
Transcontinental Crossing graphic
The CarCamera Obscura in the Ottway Ranges
The Tarago at the Combo Water Holes near Winton
The CarCamera Obscura folio was a finalist in the LEICA CCP Photodocumentary Awards
CarCamera Obscura graphic – how it works…
The CarCamera photographed as a projection @ Bundanon in 2007
A CarCamera Obscura on the Barkly Tablelands 2005
Negotiating a hairpin bend at Mt Buffalo, Victoria
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POETICS OF LIGHT: Pinhole Book and our work
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It’s not everyday that you wander into an art gallery bookshop and you stumble across a book with your work in it…! A favourite gallery bookshop for me is the QAGOMA bookshops in Brisbane – it’s always worth spending a little time there to see the latest books, to do a little in-store pre-reading, and to check out the ‘Specials’ table where the unaffordable book often becomes affordable.
The other day I’d escaped from some research work at the State Library of Queensland by walking through the preparations in QAGOMA for the 8th Asia Pacific Triennial to drop by the gallery bookshop. I held and flicked through a few books when a large volume entitled Poetics of Light with a big white reduced price label – $99.95 to $59.95. The title seemed familiar to me – then I saw the sub-title Contemporary Pinhole Photography, ‘yes, I remember that’, I thought to myself.
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The book Poetics of Light
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I flicked a few pages at the front of the book and one of my pinhole/zoneplate photos … a few pages on there was one of Vicky’s … I kept turning pages and I witnessed a compendium of amazing lensless imagery …
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Doug’s ‘The Sentinel’ page
Vicky’s Banksia lineup
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The last couple of years for us have been full of life-changing experiences and dealing with the issues of the moment, my being made redundant at TAFE and the subsequent time spent job searching, selling our house, lecture and writing commitments and amazing house-sit opportunities for friends – I’d completely lost track of this book and the exhibition that it compliments.
The Poetics of Life exhibition and book celebrates the donation of the pre-eminent Pinhole Resource Collection to the New Mexico History Museum (NMHM). The Pinhole Resource was founded by Eric Renner in 1984 and became the world’s centre for all things pinhole. Through personal research, workshops, networking and publishing Renner led the resurgence in pinhole photography, its techniques, images and its discourse. In 1989 Renner was joined by Nancy Spencer as a co-director of Pinhole Resource and co-editor of the Pinhole Resource journal.
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The Poetics of Light Exhibition
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Over the years Renner and Spencer amassed a unique collection of pinhole and camera obscura images, cameras both old and contemporary and texts, books and references about the art and practice of pinhole photography. Much of this material was donated by practitioners as a way of contributing to the ‘Resource’.
The Pinhole Resource Collection became part of the permanent collection of the Photo Archives of the New Mexico History Museum in 2012. This research archive is has the largest collection of pinhole photography and paraphernalia in the world with over 6,000 photographs, cameras, documents and books, as well as an entire run of Pinhole Journal. The NMHM has a website with images available to be searched by author’s/artist’s name, and also includes education resources and a blog.
So what is it about the pinhole image – why would anyone want to make photographs with a lens-less camera…? Renner and Spencer, in the book comment that: ‘describing the mystery of pinhole images is difficult, the concepts of soul, depth, yearning, timelessness, and archetypal feeling all contribute to the kind of visual reality produced, one perhaps only seen in a dreamlike state.’
We both felt privileged to have been selected for this book and exhibition and felt excitement at the opportunity to be recognised for our long practice in this worldwide movement.
Whilst much of our contemporary work centres on the camera obscura each year we participate in the yearly World Pinhole Day in late April – SEE our 2015-submission post HERE.
In the late 1990s I (Doug Spowart) was to state that: “pinholing creates images by simplicity, there is no techno-pretence; the images speak as murmurings, incantations of nostalgia, of mystique and memory; they are incisive and nebulous simultaneously; the process is an enigma.”
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My pinhole (zoneplate) image from the Poetic of Light exhibition and book was taken at The Sentinel at Mt Buffalo using a modified 4×5 Graflex camera. In 1999 ILFORD featured the image in a PROPHOTO Magazine feature on my work. A story about the image is featured on our old website HERE
In a statement about the body of work, The Rocks of Ages, Victoria Cooper discusses her view that image is a result of the connection of technology, process, photographer and subject in the space/time of pinhole photography.
“These images formed part of an ongoing documentation of my corporeal and psychological experiences with the land. They were created using an ancient imaging device, the Pinhole, and analogue photographic materials. Each handcrafted image was then selectively toned to identify with memories other than the eidetic captured within the film. This process is slow and considered – the subject’s light remains on the photographic paper as not a direct document but rather as a visual exegesis of a time and place.”
What follows is a selection of pinhole images made by Cooper+Spowart
Vicky’s shortbread biscuit tin 6x17cm panorama roll film
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Other pinhole works by Vicky from film boxes and other cameras …
4×5 Chrome film exposed in a film box
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Doug’s pinhole/zoneplate work from the 1990s
Doug’s Graflex 4×5 fitted with a zone plate
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The CarCamera
From 2000-2008 we converted our Toyota Tarago into a travelling camera obscura and completed a transcontinental crossing from Adelaide to Darwin in what we called our CarCamera Obscura. Here is a small selection of work from this project…
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The CarCamera in the field
The CarCamera on the Barkly Tableands during the transcontinental crossing
VIEW A DIGITAL MEDIA PRESENTATION OF CARCAMERA IMAGES
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In a time where digital photography has impacted upon old analogue technologies we saw digital as just another opportunity to explore. When we were loaned a Fuji S1 Pro camera in the later part of 2000 we fitted a pinhole and made images…
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A pinhole digital photo made with a Fuji S1 Pro camera in late 2000.
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There are still more challenges … photography has some more to give, and, be discovered …
Oh!! And I bought the book too …
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All images (except the NMHM exhibition instalation) © Doug Spowart and Victoria Cooper
CAMERA OBSCURA 2000–2020: In hotels and other places
Bedroom Camera Obscura 2000 (Y2K)
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Our rhythms insert us into a vast and infinitely complex world, which imposes on us experience and the elements of this experience. Let us consider light, for example. We do not perceive it as a waveform carrying corpuscles but as a wonder that metamorphoses things, as an illumination of objects, as a dance on the surface of all that exists.…………
Henri Levebvre, Rhythmanalysis; Space, Time and Everday Life, page 82.
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Cooper+Spowart: 20 years of Camera Obscura Collaborations
In our collaborative work, we are interested in both the physical construct and cultural conventions that inform and shape us. This includes the common rituals and structures that surround, support and transport us in our everyday lives. In this work we have extended the context of documentary photographic methodology to include the narrative potential of the camera obscura and architectural projections.
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Avochie Bathroom Camera Obscura
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In the camera obscura work the viewer’s perception of the everyday is spatially challenged. The structures that can form camera obscura are everywhere, but some spaces present themselves as clearly suitable for the making. This could be a city office, a motel room, a country bathroom or even a car. Our work attempts to contextualize the experience of the camera obscura within a concept, space or site. Upon entering the darkened space, the viewer is initially displaced, as the familiar image of the everyday is dim and unrecognizable. Then after time spent in the camera obscura, the image becomes clearer and the familiar is re-established ultimately resulting in a relocation of the observer’s awareness of place.
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CarCamera Obscura graphic – how it works…
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A CarCamera Obscura on the Barkly Tablelands 2005
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Porthole on the Spirit of Tasmania – panorama camera obscura image 2018
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City of Dreams – Ibis Hotel sunrise over Sydney
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The Travelodge camera obscura 2008
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Some background on the set-up for the Travelodge camera obscura:
Simple black garbage bags and some black electrical tape from the local 711 store. An aperture cut from a ‘found’ piece of aluminium – size around 8mm … we don’t use sophisticated glass lenses – these are direct light projections. A digital camera bares witness to our experience by capturing the image of the camera obscura projection.
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Blacking out the room
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We were watching TV …
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OUR MOST RECENT CAMERA OBSCURA: ORPHEUS ISLAND BEACH TENT
(A collaborative event with John de Rooy, Spyder Displays and the Orpheus Is Photo Workshop)
Our Spyder Camera Obscura
A DUO View of the scene and the Camera Obscura image
TO VIEW OTHER CAMERA OBSCURA WORK BY COOPER AND SPOWART SEE THE LINKS
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Our Website:
http://www.cooperandspowart.com.au/4_PROJECTS/RoomCameraObscura-Project.html
The porthole on the Spirit of Tasmania Ferry
https://wotwedid.com/2019/01/11/2018-field-studies-camera-obscura-spirit-of-tasmania-porthole/
Our car converted into a camera obscura and driven across Australia:
http://www.cooperandspowart.com.au/4_PROJECTS/CarCamera-Project.html
Two New Zealand Camera Obscuras in the the Queenstown Rydges Hotel:
https://wotwedid.wordpress.com/2012/05/07/two-new-zealand-camera-obscuras/
A public Camera Obscura performance and live video:
https://wotwedid.wordpress.com/2013/04/22/camera-obscura-pinhole-event-foto-frenzy-a-report/
YouTube videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyA5QP-mX-E
A camera obscura at the Queenstown Centre fro Creative Photography:
https://wotwedid.wordpress.com/2012/05/07/camera-obscura-qccp/
A World Pinhole Day Camera Obscura at Mt Barney:
https://wotwedid.wordpress.com/2013/04/29/world-pinhole-photography-day-our-contribution/
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Closing off the hole in the Travelodge Hotel camera obscura
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© 2019 Victoria Cooper and Doug Spowart for 20 Years of Camera Obscuras Projects
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
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WORLD PINHOLE PHOTOGRAPHY DAY: Our Contribution
We were working with Darren Jew on a Foto Frenzy ‘Exploring Photography’ workshop @ Mt Barney Lodge, a bushland retreat in South-East Queensland’s World Listed Scenic Rim.
We briefed workshop participants on pinhole photography and helped them make pinholes for their DSLR cameras, and everyone joined in the activity of ‘pinholing’.
On Saturday we blacked-out a store room of about 3 x 3 metres square in the rear of the Boolamoola Homestead using plastic and curtain material in readiness for the big WPPD on Sunday.
Boolamoola Homestead – store room window at upper left
The room before set-up
While the others sat outside eating lunch on Sunday (World Pinhole Photography Day) we sneaked into the Camera Obscura and made our image of our lunch time. The ‘pinhole’ was around 8mm. Exposure of the image was by lensed (focal length=16mm) DSLR using f8 200 ISO and time exposure of 30 seconds.
Lunchtime Camera Obscura Mt Barney Lodge
The other way ’round
Looking up to the ceiling – Camera Obscura Mt Barney Lodge
View from the window
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VISIT THE GALLERY OF IMAGES http://www.pinholeday.org/gallery/
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All photographs and texts © of the authors 2013.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
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CAMERA OBSCURA + Pinhole Event @ Foto Frenzy: A Report
Since the year 2000 we have been making large-scale room camera obscuras. These have been made as part of visual research for our Place Projects. Usually we document the process and the images form a narrative for inclusion in photobooks and exhibitions. In 2009 we launched WINDOW/s, a limited edition photobook of 9 copies, along with an exhibition of the 9 camera obscura images @ the Queensland Centre for Photography.
SEE the book as an Adobe Flash Pageflip HERE
In our Place Project work we have found that the camera obscura connects us directly with the place or site that we are working in. We have found that anyone witnessing the place-specific camera obscura responds enthusiastically this natural phenomenon. Time spent inside the camera obscura evokes a sharing of different perceptions: of the visual, of memory and of experiences in the lives of each visitor. So we decided that we should create a camera obscura as part of our Foto Frenzy artist in residence.
As a result of a conversation with a past QCA student of Doug’s from the 1980s, photographer John Pryke, through some great research on the internet, found that not far down the road was the site of an historical camera obscura on Whites Hill.
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The Whites Hill Camera Obscura c1924 from the ‘Lost Brisbane’ Project site
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The view from the front entry of Foto Frenzy was selected as its outlook is of the defining feature of this place – the major intersection of Bennetts and Old Cleveland Roads Coorparoo. A plan was created, the room blacked out with thick black agricultural plastic, a light admitting hole of around 12 mm was made and fitted in the door of the building, and screens arranged inside onto which the image could be projected.
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Saturday the 20th of April was a bright sunny day with occasional clouds and the 40 or so visitors witnessed the wonders of this simple device. Many brought cameras with them to make images, some brought family members including children – all, as we hoped, were taken by the visual experience of being ‘IN’ a camera, one which did not even require a lens.
As artists in residence working with the Foto Frenzy / Brisbane Camera Hire Team, we were around some amazing technology and people with special knowledge. Director Darren Jew produced his Canon EOS 1D and a high speed 12mm lens for the cover image of this post. If you’ve not been in a ‘lensless’ camera obscura you will not be aware of how dark the images is – usually it takes several minutes for your eyes to adjust to see what is going on, it is that dark. There are perhaps only a few movies of camera obscura images that have ever been made as it requires specialized cameras and equipment. Darren Jew offered to wind up the ISO of his latest camera and at 40,000 ISO we were able to create a movie of the impromptu performance of our antics outside the building as – ‘Vicky and Doug do a Selfie’.
SEE the movie here ….
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What fascinated us was the excitement and enthusiasm for the project, much of which was posted on Facebook soon after the event. With the permission of the respondents we have posted some of their images and words in the screen grabs that follow …
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Megan Rizzo and family visit and photograph the camera obscura
Sara Pearcy comments on her experience with son Nicholas in the camera obscura
Steven Underhayes’ terrific camera obscura image
John Pryke does a ‘Selfie’ in the camera obscura
SEE more of John’s photographs on his blog: <http://johnprykephoto.blogspot.com.au/2013/04/camera-obscura.html>..
.Additionally the event included a presentation of some of our pinhole cameras, pinhole making techniques, and discussions about how to make pinhole images with SLR and DSLR cameras. Most importantly we encouraged participants to make and enter photos made on April 28 in the 2013 World Pinhole Photography Day event.
Thank you to the participants, the Foto Frenzy / Brisbane Camera Hire team, in particular Darren Jew and Jacob Schneider, for helping to make this a successful event
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All photographs and texts © of the authors 2013.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
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ADVANCE NOTICE: View a Camera Obscura + Pinhole Event ……….. @ Foto Frenzy 20 April 2013
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SEE THE REPORT ON THIS EVENT ‘CLICK HERE’
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Foto Frenzy (Brisbane) Camera Obscura and WPPD prelude: 20 April 12 Noon to 4.00pm
On this day the photographers Cooper+Spowart will create a camera obscura in the foyer of Gallery Frenzy for visitors to view and make photographs in. Additionally attendees will be advised on how to convert Digi and Film cameras into pinhole devices to participate in World Pinhole Photography Day on 28 April, 2013.
Foto Frenzy is situated @ Unit 3 – 429 Old Cleveland Road, Coorparoo. (Next to Brisbane Camera Hire)
A 17th century camera obscura illustration
HERE IS THE PLAN
The foyer of Foto Frenzy will be blacked out – a pinhole will be placed in the window facing Bennetts Road. Screens will be set up inside the gallery area to image the light from outside.
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The camera obscura will be available for viewing from 12 Noon until 4.00pm and we are hoping for a sunny day as that will yield the most visible best results.
At 1.00, 2.00 and 3.00pm Vicky and Doug will demonstrate how to convert your Digi or Film SLR into a pinhole camera. Bring a plastic body cover if you have one, it may be able to be drilled for pinhole insertion. Materials will be available for you to make your own pinhole.
And at 1.30, 2.30 and 3.30pm Darren will demonstrate wet darkroom pinhole camera shooting (with a simple box & paper) and print processing in the NEW Foto Frenzy darkroom.
Instructions for preparing and uploading pinhole photos to the World Pinhole Photography Day site will be available.
http://www.pinholeday.org/events/?event=2629
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IT IS A FREE EVENT BUT YOU MUST BOOK AT THE EVENTBRITE SITE
http://pinholefrenzy-eac2.eventbrite.com.au/
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CAMERA OBSCURA: QCCP
Later in our time in Queenstown we made another camera obscura at Jackie and Mike’s Queenstown Centre for Creative Photography. The room image featured a view up Late Wakatipu reflected in a mirror. The expanse of the glacial lake with the layered horizon of mountains seemed, for the moment, peaceful.
We sat in the background view—the picture in a ‘lensed’ camera view of the image within the room. The camera sits on a chair on the right-hand side of the image and its shadow falls into the bottom of the frame. We’ve posted a second image of this photo inverted so to external view can be more easily interpreted.
Camera Obscura: Queenstown Centre for Creative Photography
Cheers Doug and Vicky
TWO NEW ZEALAND CAMERA OBSCURAS
The view from our window @ Rydges Hotel overlooking Lake Wakatipu – Planning a camera obscura shoot
Rydges Hotel Camera Obscura: Queenstown + Lake Wakatipu
We checked into the Rydges on the Lake hotel at Queenstown in the late afternoon and the lake-view room demanded that a camera obscura image be made. Hotel and motel rooms are all pretty much the same—the beds, the bathroom, the table with one chair maybe two, the big mirror, the tiny bar fridge full of junk food and drink and the TV. In the room one could be anywhere and nowhere.
That evening a visit to the local 4 Square store meant that we were equipped with enough black plastic bin liners and some black electrical tape to cover the 2.5 X 3 metre window.
What we needed to complement the image potential for the picture was a beautiful clear sunny day—and that’s exactly what happened the next day. There were two sessions, one around mid-day and the other late afternoon. Blue sky, the golden leaves of poplar trees in autumn and the colours of lake and mountain filled the room.
Camera Obscura image looking towards Walter Peak
In between shoots we left the ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign on the door just in case room-cleaning staff should intervene—We often wonder about what unsuspecting visitors would think when first entering the blacked-out space of the room.
Three main images were made—one of the un-made bed, a deep shot into the room, one each of the both of us—Vicky timing the one-minute exposure, the other, a simulation of Doug checking the review screen of the Olympus camera that had been used for image-making that day.
Image left: Vicky times the exposure Image right: Doug reviews images made on his camera
The ‘pinhole’ was fashioned from a postcard of Lake Wakatipu with the steamship the Earnslaw crossing the lake. The aperture was around 10mm and the exposure time around 2.5 minutes.
Victoria Cooper holding the postcard with the ‘hole’ in it
wotwedid 