Alexe O'Day: Camera Obscura

Here's my supplies: I raided our flat and grabbed an empty salad dressing box from a local restaurant (aprox shoebox size). I wanted to try a rectangular prism for my design.

Made in two parts: the adjustable inner box for focus (left) and the outer dark box with lens (right). I added a long strip of cardboard to the inner box and cut a slit in the base of the outer box to adjust focus. Ran into some problems with the plastic Tesco bag sticking to the tape on the inside of the outer box so I   used another plastic bag pasted to the base of the outer box to reduce traction. Putting tape around the edges of the slit and cardboard strip also helped to make a smoother function.

The finished product! It's got a pretty detailed focus on objects either close or far away but the outer edges seem to fisheye a bit. I think that might be more evident because of my rectangular shape but the plus is a wider landscape image projection. Only thing I would change is the inner box... it's a tad flimsy and that messes with the projection screen which distorts the image. Overall though, I'm satisfied.

I was inspired by the idea of the "picturesque" and tried to find places that were just a little bit wild and mystic:

(Dumyat Hill 6/16/11) This is a picture of a stone doorway leading to the woods. I thought it represented the gateway to adventure... a man's world in Victorian times. The wild outdoor's were no place for a lady to be and this wall symbolizes that barrier between proper and "savage".

(Dumyat Hill 6/16/11) In class, we talked about the importance of flowers in regards to Romanticism and the way they capture sentiments. I passed this bush blooming with gorgeous purple flowers and thought it was a nice fit. It's also my attempt at a close range shot... This was more difficult to focus with my camera obscura but it seemed to work out fine. The lighting was pretty dim though, which makes it difficult to make out details. Although it's not visible here, this area was surrounded by garbage and the remains of some wire fencing. The setting reminded me of the urgency 19th century photographers felt to capture beauty before it faded into extinction.

(Dumyat Hill 6/16/11) I was experimenting with depth and perspective here. I set my camera obscura on top a mossy stone wall that cut straight through the woods and messed around with my focus options. Unfortunately here you can see the distortion of my screen as evident by the wrinkles in my image. I chose to use a distant focus and take advantage of my fisheye effect to create depth in my photo. A lot of the 19th century landscape photos I researched were shot in such a way that the eye follows an unending line. The viewer is drawn into the image almost as if they were traveling themselves.