Halifax artist creates giant 'camera obscura'

A Halifax artist’s candid creation is capturing the attention of everyone who gets a chance to see it. 

An Milne’s love of photography led the Halifax artist to create something big.

“It became this way of creating this unexpected experience for people,” Milne said.

Armed with wood working skills from high school, Milne’s artistic alchemy led to the creation of a giant camera - and it’s not the first big camera the artist has made. 

“I felt like building a really large camera would create this amazing public spectacle,” Milne said.

Constructed of oak and a lens bought at a Winnipeg flea market for $100 - the project is a ‘camera obscura,’ a basic principle of optics that even predates photography. 

“I was interested in the sense of photography, and its attachment to physical artifact. With the big camera, there was this idea that I could be inside the camera and interact with the photograph directly, pushing and pulling with what is a photograph,” Milne said.

Camera obscura is essentially a dark room, where light passes through the lens and projects the outside world onto the wall creating a 4X5 large format image.

“The images that you make inside the camera, you can put up a sheet of film and record a photograph like you normally would, but you can also put up a piece of paper and trace, draw and interact with the images that are projected,” said Milne.

Milne says the most unexpected part of the project has been the public interaction.

The artist encourages spectators to climb inside the camera themselves to get the full experience.

“The work became as much about the public interaction as it did about making the photographs," Milne said. "They’ll climb inside the camera and have this crazy experience.”

Contrary to its name, camera obscura is giving people a shared experience they will certainly remember.

Milne's work can be found online.