Audra Brawley's Camera Obscure: Building the camera and Using it on location

Photo 1: Taping together some leftover parts of my big cardboard box to create the the inside box and cutting it to slide inside better.  

Photo 2: Placing the screen that is attached to the inside box inside the corridor of the larger box so that it can slide. 

Photo 3:  Taping the sides of the cut cardboard box together and filling in the holes that were letting some light into the chamber.

Camera Obscura Image #1: Cathedral Wall Ruins at Old Logie Kirk (2.0 sec exposure) early afternoon on June 15, 2011, facing towards sun, but it was an overcast day so the sun did not affect the picture too much

Camera Obscura Image #2: Gravestones at Old Logie Kirk Cemetery (2.5 sec exposure) early afternoon of June 15, 2011, facing away from the sun so the picture was brighter than my others, but it was still an overcast day 

Camera Obscura Image #3: Old house ruins just off Old Logie Kirk cemetery grounds (2.0 sec exposure) early afternoon of June 15, 2011, facing towards sun so the camera over-exposed and made the ruins a little darker, but it was an overcast day, so you can still see it

     To build this camera obscura, I tried to mostly model it after the one we saw in class. But to do this I had to overcome a few difficulties.  The first issue was trying to block out all the light in the corridor.  There were a lot of cracks after taping the sides together so I went back with extra tape and cardboard and just filled them in.  Thankfully, I had plenty of materials to do this with.  Secondly, it was difficult measuring the inside box that slid back and forth with the screen.  It was mostly fixed with trial and error.  I also had to take it out and cut it to be smaller so that it could slide more, in order to give me a better range of focal lengths.  Another issue I had with the inside box was making the screen taut.  It kept having small crinkles in it that I never got fully out, but taped many different ways to get it as straight as possible in order to achieve the clearest picture.  The final difficulty in designing the camera obscura was the hole for the lens.  Since we only had knives to cut with, making it round was complicated.  Also, trying to let in the correct amount of light with only the curvature exposed was quite difficult.  I had to cut a small amount at a time and just work with it to make the hole round and the correct size.