Jujube/making-a-camera

Making a Camera

Deconstruct to define "the optical device"

What is seeing?

- internalizing - intuition - feeling

What is representing?

Discussions on the Camera

Terms

- film - cinema - moving image - motion picture - video

How does the camera shape what you make?

"Digital makes me want to shoot very sharp." (Sonia)

"When I make pictures I don't care if they are sharp or not." (Marieke)

Consider:

shape of the camera

position of the viewfinder

- Is the viewfinder a division between you and the world?

- Sometimes the world is full of people. Sometimes, trees.

- How has it been to be without a viewfinder?

sound of the camera

weight of the camera

- "Carrying that at 6am in London in February. No more of that!" (Susanna)

Where does the camera begin and where does it end?"

Discussions on the (Moving) Image

"When you reduce the amount of information, does it become more poetic?"

If we define information as FPS...

Experiments

Devise an experiment to test an assumption you had about the camera. (suggested by Barend)

Think about what you want to explore in making a camera. (suggested by Mathijs)

Today I jotted down this phrase, analog as meditation. Consider the actions associated with using an analog camera:

I load the film and wind it in place.
With a viewfinder, I set the aperture, shutter speed, iso.
I focus on the subject.
I press the shutter button.
I notice how much film is left.
--- post-device ---
When I am at the end of the film, I rewind and unload it.
If I have access to a dark room, I develop the film. (This is a process I don't know anything about, so I can't break down the actions yet.)

Now consider the actions of a digital camera:

I turn on the machine (or maybe I check the batteries and memory cards beforehand).
Assuming I am on autofocus, I half-press the shutter button and let the camera focus for me, more or less.
I probably perceive a focus through the viewfinder as I hear a beep indicating the focus is done.
I press the shutter button.
--- post-device ---
I take the memory card out at the end of a trip, or until it fills up.
I transfer the files.

My relationships with the image creation are very different in the two processes. The first requires more physical actions, in which each action — load, wind, set, focus, press, etc. — indicate intention. I am in touch with the medium, and I treat it more like a canvas on which I paint. (Well, paint with light might sound a bit trite.)

The second is more hands-off (quite literally in autofocus) and I, usually unthinkingly, outsource important image-making decisions. The process is more passive — let, perceive, hear — and the actions are reduced to half-press and press. It's "getting" an image rather than "making" one.

Of course I would be unfair to only compare these two scenarios. After all, I can buy a disposable point-and-shoot analog camera whose process resembles the autofocus in an DSLR, and I can shoot in manual mode on a DSLR with actions similar to those in the first. The differentiation lies more in the mentality of treating the image:

Are we translating what we see, or are we pursuing a representation (that has probably been shaped by other processes)?

This is not an attempt to judge which process is better. As a creator of images, I am glad I am starting to articulate my relationship with devices and technical processes.

I want to devise a way to embody meditation in using the analog camera.

How (Auto)focus Works

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/explora/photography/tips-and-solutions/how-focus-works

Metaphors from Analog processes

https://medium.economist.com/data-visualisation-from-1987-to-today-65d0609c6017