Camera Obscura ft. Payton Astin and Kaley Gatlin

"cam·er·a ob·scu·ra

ˌkam(ə)rə əbˈskyo͝orə/

noun

a darkened box with a convex lens or aperture for projecting the image of an external object onto a screen inside. It is important historically in the development of photography."

If you want the basic definition of a camera obscura, this is what you'll get when you ask Google. If you want to witness something amazing, however, you'll get some friends, 21 giant black trash bags, and a LOT of tape.

This collaboration started out as a somewhat doubtful experience. While talking about the process, we all kept saying "I hope this works, I hope this works," crossing our fingers that we could get some good photos for this assignment. At first, once we got all the layers of our trash bags up, we stood in the dark room discussing how big the aperture should've been.

We started with a pinprick.... nothing.

We moved on to a dime size... it got a little brighter, but still no image.

At this point, I think we all feared we had done something wrong. Then we tried to make the hole a bit bigger...

And we were all amazed by what we had just created.

The city had been flipped and plastered on the wall behind us. We saw boats and cars passing on the ceiling, and the clouds fell to the floor. We were all so excited and stunned by what we were seeing. Then, after taking several pictures, we had an idea. I wanted to see what multiple holes/apertures would create. When we ripped another hole in the bag, an echo of the 'fresco' was created. Then another, and another. We ended up having four or five different copies of the same image, while the city went about its normal day.

I had such a great time with the process, even though I had my doubts, but the outcome was absolutely amazing to me. I've mentioned before that I like collaboration projects, and this still reigns true. It felt so much more rewarding to be able to share the experience with others, and I wish we had had another person there to help take photos of us all together with the project. The experience ended up being a memorable one, and I can't wait for the next Camera Obscura, fingers crossed!

Photo Credit: Kaley Gatlin

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