Check out The Camera Van!

Van as Giant Pinhole Camera

Van as Giant Pinhole Camera

About a year ago, I visited an exhibition of photographs produced by a giant pinhole camera - the camera consisted of a van/truck, whose cargo compartment was converted into the body of the pinhole camera. The pinhole was located on a side wall, the opposite wall was used to mount a roughly 2 by 3 m sized sheet of photographic paper. The paper was developed on the spot inside the van (I believe they used some kind of positive process).

Setting the camera's FOV must be a little tricky, as you have to manoeuvre the car for every single shot. The exhibitioin I saw showed beautiful landscape images from all over Europe.

Here's the link to the pinhole camera truck.
 
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I met this guy years ago....like around 1991 when I was in grad school. He had his first Art Car tour waaay back then.

I think it is wonderful! Seems that the goal of all photoraphers is to capture a slice of life. I love the innovative way he approached this and the results are great. The van not only is the camera but it is the instigator of the photo.

Funny to me...I was just prior to this looking at some A+A silk staps thinking I might want to update the "look" of my M6. I feel ike such a snob 🙂
 

I had the same thought, Arjay. When I saw the title of this thread, I thought it was going to be about this vehicle, about which even the NY Times had an article (ok, blog entry) last year.

For my money, the pinhole truck is a much better creative vehicle and does not take out of circulation several hundred cameras that could have been usable to someone. My admitted bias: I'm not a fan of 'performance art', which the camera van is in a way.
--Dave
 
About a year ago, I visited an exhibition of photographs produced by a giant pinhole camera - the camera consisted of a van/truck, whose cargo compartment was converted into the body of the pinhole camera. ...
Here's the link to the pinhole camera truck.

Thanks for the link. Many years ago I heard about a similar pinhole-camera truck that was taking pictures of the Grand Canyon. Never heard about how that turned out.

I checked out some of the shots in the gallery - very nice, but I really hope to see the full-sized prints some day.
 
god bless 'em: these gents have figured out a way to make some kind of living doing what they are passionate about........and giving us something to talk about........ There have also been photographers who will get a hotel room at a well-chosen location, black-out the windows except for a pinhole, and post the photo paper on the opposite wall to capture the image. Of couse, these are well-chosen hotel rooms, knowing that the view offers an interesting foto, upside down and backwards as it were.
 
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