Masters of Education in Art & Design with Digital Media
Niamh O’Toole
The Action of Light - The history and science of lens based media
Over a course of ten weeks, students from Our Lady’s Collage, Galway, investigated the science and history of lens-based media. The results are a series of black and white digital photographs depicting figures in the school garden. These images were captured on phones and created using simple analogue pinhole filters to create an eerie aesthetic reminiscent of early photography. During the scheme they also constructed their own pinhole cameras, learned how to capture light and develop images.
They gained an insight into the fundamental process linking all photography by learning about and experiencing a camera obscura. Captured inside this large camera obscura, students choreographed a performance, in line with their digital photographs, to artistically demonstrate the progression of camera development from the first constructed camera obscura of the Renaissance to modern digital photography and video. The camera obscura was constructed from a black water container, which was light proofed. The bottom side was removed, a lens with a focal length of one meter was attached to the front and a white screen was painted on the opposite inside wall, in order to capture the image transmitted through this lens.