Back in 2002 I was halfway through the BFA program in fine art photo at OSU and I’d just started a course called “alternative camera” taught by the great Ardine Nelson. The umbrella of “alt camera” encompassed everything from finding/modifying toy cameras to making your own cameras from scratch. The course awakened in me a drive to explore and push the boundaries in my artmaking and I really learned to lean into the element of chaos and the beauty of imperfection that accompanied exploration. I crafted a range of cameras during those three months. I made a LEGO pinhole camera that shot 4x5 film. I modified my grandmother’s broken stereoscopic 35mm film camera to shoot hazy, ethereal pinhole images. But my favorite camera ended up being one I made from an old cigarette tin (anyone else remember Camel Kegs??).
When I first started photography in the late 90s I was taught how to make a simple pinhole camera out of an oatmeal tin with a “pinhole” poked in the side to let in light. If you’re unfamiliar with pinhole photography, essentially you can turn any light-light object or space into a camera if there’s a tiny opening (aka the aperture), including entire rooms (look up camera obscure). When I first learned to how make/shoot with pinhole camera in the 90s I simply poked a hole in the side of an oatmeal carton, shoved a piece of photo paper inside, and left outside for 10 minutes, hoping the exposure would be close to accurate. In the Alt Camera class Ardine actually taught us how to make a precise aperture out of tin metal so we could properly calculate exposure, thus taking the guess work out of shooting pinhole (I still guessed a bit since I refused to do all the math required to account for reciprocity failure in long exposures).
Anyway, back to the Camel Keg-era. Since the keg was metal it was quite sturdy, and the top of the keg was easy to remove and really tight, which is essential for not leaking light. I painted the interior black to reduce lens flare and then drilled out a quarter-inch hole, taping a piece of tin with a tiny hole drilled in over the opening (the lens). I created two tape mounds inside which securely held a sheet of 4x5 film in position opposite the lens aperture. The distance of the aperture (approximately f/256) to the film plan determined how wide angle the lens was, which is likely around 16mm. Finally, I added a foam core base to make the camera easy to position horizontally and affixed a time chart to the bottom of the keg to calculate exposure. The only other thing I needed was a light meter and a film-changing bag so I could load and re-load shots in the field.
It was a powerful feeling to know every step of creating a thing, because once I understood how to make it I could think of ways of changing it and expanding off of it. This way of thinking is how I have approached my lighting and camera techniques and it keeps me pushing to this day. So here’s a big thank you to Ardine as well as my high school photography teachers Rick Kocks and Linda Ringler for stoking and steering that curiosity in me. You’ve shaped my metaphorical vocal cords and given me the tools to engage with this world.