Our photo program provided our youth with a really unique experience this month. At the club, Sandra helped our youth create pinhole cameras out of shoe boxes! We made the boxes completely light-tight by taping all of the edges. We also spray painted the insides black so that there wouldn't be any light reflection inside the box. Then we made apertures with pinholes on pieces of heavy-duty foil. After two program sessions of preparation, the shoe boxes were ready for the trip to the UH photo lab.The lab supervisor Mike gave us a tour of the photo lab, including the film developing room, the darkroom with the enlargers and trays for developing photos, and the room with all of the drying racks. He also showed us some unique photographs and cameras too. When we were in the darkroom at the photo lab, we were able to load the cameras with a sheet of light-sensitive photographic paper and then we used the cameras to take photos on the UH Manoa campus.
Alvin M., 8th Grade, took this photo of a tree in the morning light.
The image on the left is the negative and the positive is shown on the right.
The youth then went back to the lab to see their photographs appear in the developing tray. The photos they made were actually "negatives," so they had to turn them into a positive by reprinting them over another sheet of paper. After this part, the youth then used plants they found outside to make photograms. Basically, for a photogram, youth placed objects on top of the light sensitive paper and then exposed the paper with the enlarger. The objects blocked the light from hitting parts of the paper, making interesting white shapes on a black background.
Sharlene T., 7th Grade, created this simple but elegant photogram.Thank you to Mike and all of the other helpers at the UH Manoa Photo Lab for making this field trip possible!
