Camera obscura in Rovaniemi

Turing my room into a camera obscura seems to have caught on in some of the photography department here at the University of Lapland, which is great! During a meeting with Michael Jacob's we turned the class room into a camera obscura, we got some great results after much work to try and make the room as light tight as possible. Although, little colour could be seen in the projection, lots could be seen in the images taken. We went on to experiment with long exposures and light on the projections. The ideas have given me a lot to think about for my own work.

I went into university the next day and found out that some of Michael Jacob's other photography students had seen out experiment and decided to turn their rooms into camera obscuras! I have never created such a rush for people to do things before and it has given me great excitement to continue with my work and let as many people as possible become involved.

Photography assignment

We have been set an assignment from Michael Jacobs for our photography course. We have to take two photographs, one on the subject of love and the other beauty. My two photographs are shown above. I used the photograph of the pram for love; I saw the pram on its own next to a children's playground with no one around it thought it nicely juxtaposed the context of love. The second defines beauty, this was taken on a river which I walked across in Helsinki and for me defines beauty.

My first camera obscura room

I have wanted to create a camera obscura in my room for a long time, and have just got around to actually making it. I blocked up my window yesterday and created a pinhole in the centre. Although, I couldn't see if this was actually working due to it being a completely grey day. I liked this though as the weather forecast said today was going to be sunny and I wanted the element of surprise I love so much with pinhole photography. When I woke up this morning I was delighted with what I sore. My first camera obscura had worked! I had seen images of others artists camera obscuras however, I was still amazed at my own. It is like the feeling you get when you develop your first pinhole photograph, just better. My first photos are not quite in focus due to a lack of tripod but, I am going to keep my camera obscura and document and changes.

Presentation for tea bag project...

I have been using tea bags as a form of documentation of my time here in Rovaniemi, each one representing a different day. I wanted to be able to display these but, I wasn't sure what form to use. I have contemplated using a book but, this never appealed to me much. However, I have been looking at work by Tatjana Bergelt, who uses diary paper in her work which she then paints onto. I have taken inspiration from this particular image, as I liked the aesthetics of the staining, text and drawings. I will incorporate these into aspects into versions which I will use as a backing for my tea bags.