Camera Obscura

Since Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day is coming up, I wanted to share a project I did with my photography class recently.  We built a camera obscura inspired by Abelardo Morell.

To set this up, we blocked all the windows in a room at the school, then positioned “pinholes” in a portion of the window.  These pinholes ranged from 1/2 to 1 inch in diameter and turned the entire room into a pinhole camera projection of what was outside.  Everything was backwards and upside down.  The students (and staff, parents and myself) had a blast standing in the room and watching cars, kids and everything else go by our little school.

Above is a long exposure photo of the back wall that shows what we were watching in the room.
Tips:
-The room doesn’t need to be 100% light tight.  Cover the windows most of the way, although the darker the better.
-Smaller pinholes create sharper projections, but are harder to see with the naked eye.  Larger pinholes create brighter projections, but are a little fuzzy.
-To take a picture of the inside of your camera obscura, point the camera at the wall opposite the window and use a longer exposure on a tripod.

Good luck with your life size pinhole projects!
-Kelly