LEGOS BREAKING NEWS:
Camera made from one tiny Lego brick
actually works
The inspiration began with a pine nut. Ryan Howerter, a graphic
design student at Colorado State University, took a photography class
and his teacher shared the story of the Pinholo,
a minuscule functioning pine-nut pinhole camera. Howerter knew what he
had to do. "Being a fan of Lego bricks, I had to carry this idea to its
logical conclusion," he tells Crave.
Howerter hollowed out a tiny
Lego brick (just two studs square) and turned it into a working pinhole
camera. He place photographic paper inside, exposed it and processed it
to turn out some seriously small black-and-white images. To truly
understand the scale, look closely at Howerter's image of a minifig
holding up a pinhole photo showing a tree on the campus at Colorado
State.
"The most challenging part is definitely trying to get an actual
photo out of it. It's far too easy to over or underexpose the paper or
film. I think it was about a 10-second exposure for the one held by the
minifig," Howerter says. He's still trying to get a workable negative
from the brick camera due to the difficulty of
processing such a small
piece of film.
While working with such a tiny pinhole can be
tricky, anybody can follow in Howerter's footsteps and give it a try.
The materials list includes a Lego brick, a piece of brass shim stock
(which you poke a tiny hole through), black tape and film or
photographic paper. You'll also need access to the gear used for
developing photos.
"The brick's central support tube needs to be
removed, which probably requires a Dremel tool. A black brick works
best,
to minimize reflected light," Howerter says.
Perhaps the pinhole Lego experiment will spark a new art
movement of minifig-scale photography. I'm imagining an art opening with
a little Lego gallery inside a regular gallery and minifigs
contemplating the artwork on display. Full-size human attendees would
need complimentary magnifying glasses to really enjoy the details of the
photos. As Howerter demonstrates, there's a real beauty to the tiny
art.
No comments:
Post a Comment