Building a Camera Obscura at Rosliston Forestry Centre.
This is not what I expected to be doing on a Saturday - but what fun. Rosliston have plans to build a stunning camera obscura and have enlisted the help of artist Michael Fairfax to help them design and build it. Whilst the fund raising is taking place there are a number of workshops running through the year to show people how it will work, its various uses and how to make one.
I was most impressed with the idea that the final camera obscura would also be used at night by the Roliston Astronomy Group to view the night sky. What a brilliant way to learn about the stars.
This was the piece of wood I chose to make my obscura:
I liked the shapes at the bottom where the bark had come off - looked like a city skyline.
After a lot of drilling....
Cutting ....
Plus a couple of swear words, a bit of whittling, a great deal of time spent getting the lens at the correct focal length - I ended up with a this:
and this is where the lots of imagination needs to come in - to the left is a star and the light coming from it; the lens is the moon and below are two church spires, or tower blocks.
And to prove it actually works here is the image that can be seen on the screen of my camera obscura.
Michael was very laid back and incredibly encouraging. It was a very pleasant 4 hours spent doing something I would never do, surrounded by people who were equally enthusiastic and creative.
If you don't know what an obscura is - visit this: the magic mirror of life.
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