We attempted a more ambitious studio shoot today, this time relocating to a room that offered greater control of ambient light. The gown that we pulled from the costume closet encouraged us to be bold - it seemed to banish any shyness from the room, and multiple photographers covered the scene while other girls gave artistic direction. Another couple of handheld camera obscura were fabricated and employed.
We threw ourselves headlong into setting up a studio shoot, which gave some of the girls a chance to get their hands on some professional lighting gear and experiment with lighting a scene. Their taste tended towards the dramatic, with heavy shadows, vivid colors, and high contrast. Meanwhile, another faction of girls built a few camera obscuras out of cardboard with which to view the scene, and for the photographers to try and shoot through.
We continued our experiments from last week, this time in a bright room, testing whether the striking images we were producing in the black chamber would still appear in the light of day. We played a game called "What's in a camera?" in which each participant drew a diagram of the interior mechanisms of a camera, to their best understanding, and then tried to convince others of the validity of the system they drew. Inserting magic and whimsy into the diagram was fair game, as long as their diagram represented some sort of a system by which images are captures.
The planetarium at the Girls Club - what makes it so special is not just that it's the newest, sharpest planetarium in town, with a perfectly seamless perforated metal dome, but that it's programming goes far beyond the night sky. Dave Pentecost, the dome's curator, embraces experimental film and new media, and the planetarium serves as a honey pot: attracting artists with the opportunity to create and compose for New York's only readily accessible hemispherical theater. These visiting artists then share their work with the girls, and everyone wins.
Here's the planetarium in the New York Times.
After taking a spin through the known universe in the planetarium, we took the 'tweens into the black room, and they made their selections from the Guilds optical array: lenses (planoconvex, biconvex, doublets, and a few glass spheres, for good measure), light sources (flashlights and candles) and screens (matte frames stretched with drafting mylar). By illuminating our faces with flashlights and holding up a large lens, we found we could project our image on the walls of the room. The help of several children was required to make this projection, as the image only becomes visible with light from multiple little flashlights.
