by ilocopana "High School Life" : January 2014

Photography is all experimental, we can never be too sure of any result till it has gone through the final aesthetic process, there are just too many moving parts germinating correctly or incorrectly, and possibly surprised by it outcome of exposure (Film). As an art teacher and Artist, I tend to think of the connection between the image and our vision in mind to produce as directly as possible light to paper (using Pin Hole Cameras made in class by students). As an Artist and a visual linguist, My way of producing an image is twofold, in painting I am making an image from my imagination, but with a camera, I can take a picture, however with a pinhole camera students are empowered to make a picture/image.

Students learn the skills for making a camera from card stock which can be used easily for model building or set designing and engineering

Lining up all the right measurements to make the pin camera

the back of the camera which holds the negative in place on the back, which is inserted into the other half of the box

this is the other half of the box with the pinhole in the center this is then slipped into the box cover seen here with a negative

Dinora is making final preparations for her box camera before inserting it into the dark bag the black bag on the counter

Once the camera is loaded, it's now ready to take a picture Austin is setting up the tripod and is facing the camera in the classroom, which in these lighting conditions would take 3 minutes more or less

this is a negative I inverted the negative to be positive for those of you who are here looking at this for the first time

this is on ofonee student camera with a few of thegatives

This is where we develop the negatives I had two exhaust booths used for spray painting I turned them into dark rooms with a tray of developer and fixer for the pictures looking at the booth you can see attached is a rubber apron hanging over the bottom where the students can stick their hands in the booth and work on the picture.
Once inside the booth the camera is dismantled, the negative paper comes out and dipped into the developer for about a minute the fixer for a minute. Once this is accomplished, both the camera and the paper negative are taken out of the booth the paper negative is quickly dipped in plain water to neutralize the chemicals and then to the sink with soap and water giving it a final bath... and then finally a negative

With minimal resources often the alternative becomes the only option... Here the student learns the art of engineering by mathematically figuring out how to produce a camera using only one sheet of paper. The task is to make a camera that can create an image using one piece of card stock, scissors, and tape with the luxury of poking a hole with a thumb tack.