MetaFilter posts tagged with cameraobscura

The Great Picture

troll — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 18:21:40 -0800

Southern California Public Radio Reports (article [audio and video available inline]): Five years ago, a team of photographers created the world’s largest photograph by converting an Orange County jet hanger into a giant [pinhole] camera. The 30-by-111 foot image — called “The Great Picture” — is now on public view [at the Culver Center of the Arts] for only the second time in the U.S. Displaying the giant snapshot can be a monumental challenge. Making it was a lot harder (slyt). Continued from the main article: The silvery black and white image is like an abstract panoramic cave painting. Along a horizon line that splits the twin runaways from the sky and San Joaquin Hills, you can make out a control tower, buildings, giant antennae and even a couple of palm trees. The Legacy Project team created the photo by transforming a 160-foot wide, 80-foot tall aircraft hangar into a giant camera obscura — a dark room. The "world’s largest photograph" link was found in Krapulous' comment here.

A Sugarplum Vison

clarknova — Fri, 24 Dec 2010 18:48:28 -0800

In the 1970s Edwin Land constructed the Moby C: the world's largest instant camera. Not to be confused with its smaller cousin, this one-of-a-kind Polaroid produces incredible 40x80 (1:1) prints. After serving nearly 20 years as "the museum camera", Joe McNally put it to the task of heroic portraiture. He's again employed it to take some beautiful ballerina photos.

wide-eyed camera obscura

megob — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 15:34:20 -0800

Every week, two holes are released. The cardboard camera obscura they belong to travels from one participant of the project to the next, both take their picture on the same sheet of film, juxtaposing (and partly blending) two places somewhere in the world. Over the weeks and years, in an ongoing and potentially infinite process, a collective world-wide photographic artwork is arising: Camera Obscura 1-∞ (paying homage, as the artists state, to Roman Opalka's lifelong project "Counted Paintings: 1965 / 1 – ∞"). It offers some exquisite binocularism with fairly wide eye-distance: New York/Berlin; Leipzig/Cologne; Melbourne/Stuttgart.

Camera Obscura

grapefruitmoon — Sun, 21 Jan 2007 22:27:13 -0800

Camera Obscura : a series of photos by artist Abelardo Morell (previously discussed here and here) in which all light is blocked from a window, save for a small pinprick - the result is that the entering light projects an upside version of the view onto the wall, creating a hauntingly beautiful image.

Camera Obscura, making history hideous

snarkout — Mon, 29 Mar 2004 17:56:44 -0800

Camera Obscura trolls the attics and abandoned dressers of the world, finding the great lost portraits of the past, then burying them and posting these laughable ones instead. Develop Dutchophobia and learn to fear the Irma!

The Magic Mirror of Life

plep — Tue, 29 Apr 2003 23:42:42 -0800

The Magic Mirror of Life. An appreciation of the camera obscura.

Paper Cams

KnitWit — Fri, 03 Jan 2003 09:10:35 -0800

Pin-hole photography is nothing new. 300 years before there was film people were using the idea of the Camera Obscura to project images onto nearby surfaces. Using the process to capture the images onto film was a simple progression. But camera cases break, and leak light exposing the film to early.

Enter Thomas Hudson Reeve who folds his own one time only cameras with the very photo-paper he presents as his finished work. Only a simple brass plate pinhole shutter is reused and developing is done in the camera by pouring the chemicals directly in.
Go check out PaperCams for more.