Shoot 5 - Bedroom

Camera Obscura - Bedroom 

What is camera obscura? 

Camera Obscura is a photography technique that allows you to bring the outside landscape into a room. The projection of what can be seen outside the room in reflected onto the wall but upside down, they way it would appear in a camera. In a basic description, to achieve this outcome you must cover a windows in dark paper or a sheet so the no light can come in and cut a small hole in the middle, acting as a lens. 

Below is the set-up in my room - 

Photographers Influence - Abelardo Morell 

This shoot was influenced by Abelardo Morell as I was experimenting with the camera obscura technique that is commonly associated with his work. He uses this technique to achieve images like the ones below - 

These are examples of Morell's work, he usually uses areas with a beautiful landscape outside or includes well-known buildings in his work. I will not be able to do this due to the access I have to a limited amount of places. However I will be experimenting with what I have therefore producing interesting images just in a different way. 

AO1 - My work reflects that of Abelardo Morell's due to the fact that I have tried Camera Obscura. I have taken this technique and tried to create my own images that I think have turned out relatively well. The only difference between mine and Abelardo's is that some of my photographs include my sister as I thought this was bring a slight story or narrative to the image due to not having access to amazing landscapes like Morell does. 

Image Bank 

The images above are ones I have found online and I think they are a lot more achievable for me. This is because the landscapes that are outside the window looks like common places, just roads with houses and some of forests. I also like the fact that these images include people, this adds a story ands substance to the image, I would like to try this in my own work. 

Contact Sheet 

Best Images (Edited) 

AO2 - The camera settings I used for this shoot varied between the images I took at night and those I took in the morning. As you can see above the first two images have a slight blue hue to the where they are night time shots whereas the bottom two are clear as they were day-time ones. The ones taken in the evening have a very high ISO of 12800 and an aperture of F3.5, this is because I had to maximise the amount of light that the camera picked up in order to properly expose the landscape on the wall. The day time images were slightly different as there was more light, they were taken at ISO800 and F/22 which made them sharper than the evening photos. All of the images however were taken with a shutter speed of 30secs as this was the amount of time I needed to pick up the colour and the detail of the landscape that was on the wall, without this amount of time the camera wouldn't have been able to see anything in the room and the images would've come out blank.

Below is an example of the simple editing I done on the images above. My main aim for my editing process was to increase the contrast and saturation of the patterns on the wall to make it more obvious.

The first step I took was to change the exposure and highlights in the image, this made it slightly brighter and brought out the snowy rooftops, making the landscape stand out against the wall. 

Secondly, I slightly adjusted the curves of the image. By just bringing the line down below the original it made the shadows more prominent, consequently increasing the depth of the shadows. 

The last thing I done was work with the colour balance of the image as it appeared slightly yellow from the editing I had done. Therefore, I used this tool to move the bar away from yellow towards the blue, I think this gave the room a different feeling. 

AO3 & AO4 - This shoot was my very first attempt at using Camera Obscura and I think it went well. I achieved the desired outcome in the style of Abelardo Morell, by projecting the landscape of outside onto the wall. As this was my first attempt there are a few things I have learned from it. Firstly, to make the image sharper I am going to decrease the size of the lens hole I used on my window, this will sharpen the landscape. Secondly, I have researched how to increase my exposure time from which I found out about the bulb settings whereby I can do a longer shutter speed than the maximum 30seconds. 

Going forward with this idea of Camera Obscura, there are a few ideas I would like to try out. One being by using a subject in the image and getting them to move so they appear in more than one place at a time. This would give a fine art or surreal effect, it could also have a narrative behind it. The other experiment I would like to do is to have two or more holes on the window as this may project the same landscape twice from different perspectives.