Kailin Cannon: Camera Obscura

Camera Obscura

Part 1 - Construction

The construction part of my camera obscura project. I used a Pringles can, part of a plastic bag for my screen, the lens we were given, and tore up parts of a folder for both an outside cover around where I cut my can and as a tool to make my screen mobile.

This was towards the end of my first try with the camera. I had only to attach the lens...And then after I was finished with it all, I discovered my screen inside should be able to move. With this version, it did not. I had to tear it back up and start over!

I am incapable of working with hard aluminum foil. My best option was just stabbing it with a large knife and then twisting in circles... Needed to cover around the now cut-in-two Pringles can. To keep light out of the seam.

The nearly finished v2 product with a now-mobile screen! I wish I would have taken a picture of me constructing the mobile screen. All it is is part of a folder (for the thicker material vs paper). I stuck it in the can and spent quite alot of time trying to spread my screen thinly across it while also letting it keeps it's cylinder shape. 

Part 2 - Picturesque Images of Historic Stirling

I tried taking pictures with the sun behind me, beside me, in front of me...and I quickly discovered that it was best to take the pictures standing in a shaded area while the sun was shining on the object of interest. So that is how the presented images are captured.

This is a wall I walk on Stirling campus that I walk past every day on my way to pathfoot. I don't know why,  but I really enjoy looking at the wall whenever I'm walking. Old stone walls with moss and flowers growing over them, seen in the mysterious shade past a few old trees, seems kind of magical to me in that "Secret Garden" sort of way.

This is another shot of the wall. I wanted to keep them both.

This is Airthrey Castle. I could only dream that someday I'd be rich enough to build a mini-castle like this to live in myself. Castles are one of the top things I wanted to see, photo, and learn about when I came to Scotland. 

This is a long shot of the Wallace monument. I was disappointed that it seemed so small, even through my camera lens without the obscura. But I wanted a far-off shot. Too bad obscuras can't zoom in!

With the shots through my obscura, I found it was better to take the pictures with my iPhone's camera. When I tapped the screen to focus it would darken the inside of the obscura for a better quality picture than what my camera was taking. The pictures also seemed to be closer in getting the screen, instead of just a bunch of the tube and only a little of the actual screen (as my camera was doing).