9.23.2007

Cube Camera

My most recent pinhole camera. It is in the building stage after having been in the design stage for months (my projects crawl along at very slow paces, often having long gestational periods in my sketchbooks). Originally, I had planned to make a very small camera, a cube at its center with cylindars (35 mm film cannisters) distancing the 6 pinholes from six film planes. Somehow that idea never sat quite right, and then we moved across the state. As the dust settled and I became familiar with my semi-rural surroundings, I realized that I wanted a bigger, blockier camera. As the weeks progress, I hope to finish the camera, expose some negatives and make some prints. I'm not going to explain what I plan to do with the images at this point, as that will be the subject of another entry. For now, it should suffice to say that I will most likely avoid any deadpan display of imagery.

9.08.2007

Finished Icosahedron Camera

The Icosahedron Camera is finished, more or less. I have experimented once with it, aside from shooting with the prototypical tetrahedron sections (see previous post). The day before moving from San Antonio to Nacogdoches, I loaded all twenty sections, tied up the camera, and ventured out to the common eating area outside the cafeteria at UTSA. This area is called the "Sombrilla." I can only guess that it has something to do with shade, because I don't see any broad Latin hats out there. For me, it was an ideal place to take advantage of the unique qualities of the tetrahedron sections. The overhead architecture, which lets in plenty of natural light, distorts nicely along the folds of the tetrahedron, to which the film is conforming. Thirteen of the twenty worked out nicely. Not bad for a first attempt. I'll publish samples when I get them printed. For now, here's a picture of the finished camera.