CAMERA OBSCURA PORTRAITS

Beginning in 1983, I created this device for my Introduction to Photography class. The portraits are made with a simple camera obscura, the precursor to the modern camera. A magnifying glass, (my father’s Zeiss), is used to project an image, (inverted), on a piece of tracing paper secured to clear plastic. The camera is set up in the darkroom, with the subject lit behind the curtain. A student poses, and a clear image is formed, focused and and the light is turned off. Black and white photo paper, used as film, is taped to the tracing paper and the light is turned back on momentarily, exposing the image. The paper is then developed conventionally, creating a negative sheet. This negative print can then be contact printed with unexposed paper, creating a positive. Alternatively, the negative can be scanned and inverted into a positive with Photoshop. Once the operation is understood, the portraits are made collaboratively with students.