THE HAPPENING GROUP

Yoko Ono Cut Piece old

Yoko Ono Cut Piece new

http://video.aol.com/video-detail/happening-yoko-ono/593192296

Cameras

Camera is a device used to capture images, as still photographs or as sequences of moving images like in movies or videos. We have all been exposed to some form of camera usage just today. Whether it was just looking at your friends on facebook and seeing their pictures, pictures around our room, posters taken by photographers, book covers, flyers in subways, security cameras in our buildings, watching TV, using our web camera, camera phones, etc…

Large format camera lens. wikipedia.com
THE HISTORY

Pinhole Camera
Alhazen, a great authority on optics in the Middle Ages, invented the pinhole camera, and explained why the image was upside down. Around 1600, Della Porta reinvented the pinhole camera. Apparently he was the first European to publish any information on the pinhole camera and is sometimes incorrectly credited with its invention. Book of Optics (1011-1021). 1

A pinhole camera is a camera without a conventional glass lens. An extremely small hole in a very thin material can focus light by confining all rays from a scene through a single point. In order to produce a reasonably clear image, the aperture has to be about a hundred times smaller than the distance to the screen, or less. The shutter of a pinhole camera usually consists of a hand operated flap of some light-proof material to cover and uncover the pinhole. Pinhole cameras require much longer exposure times than conventional cameras because of the small aperture; typical exposure times can range from 5 seconds to hours or days.
6

http://www.exploratorium.edu/science_explorer/pringles_pinhole.html

Camera Obscura
The camera obscura was the direct forerunner of the camera. The first casual reference to the Camera Obscura is by Aristotle (in like 330 BC), who questions how the sun can make a circular image when it shines through a square hole. Johannes Kepler was the first person to coin the phrase Camera Obscura in 1604, and in 1609, Kepler further suggested the use of a lens to improve the image projected by a Camera Obscura. English scientists Robert Boyle and Robert Hooke later invented a portable camera obscura in 1665-1666 2

Camera Obscura is Latin for “dark chamber”, an early mechanism for projecting images, in which an entire room functioned as a real-time imaging system.

Camera Obscura image: wikipedia.com

Cameras may work with the light of the visible light spectrum
image: http://www.glenbrook.k12.il.us

or with other portions of the electromagnetic spectrum. A camera generally consists of some kind of enclosed hollow, with an opening or aperture

image: Aperture

at one end for light to enter, and a recording or viewing surface for capturing the light at the other end. Most cameras have a lens positioned in front of the camera’s opening to gather the incoming light and to focus the image, or part of the image, on the recording surface. The diameter of the aperture is often controlled by a diaphragm mechanism, but some cameras have a fixed-size aperture.

image: Diaphragm

These are the aperture settings. They indicate how large the diaphragm opening is. The smallest number, in this case f/1.4, is the largest opening, allowing the most light through. The largest number, f/16 on the diagram but generally f/22 on lenses, is the smallest diaphragm, allowing the least amount of light through.
BUT WHY DO IMAGES CAPTURED TURN OUT UPSIDE DOWN???

When an image is captured through a camera it turns out upside down like in this image from “Patterns in Nature” http://acept.asu.edu

7 The reason for this is a very simple one to explain and maybe this picture will help a bit before I get into the details…

7 In this picture we see beautiful beams of light flowing into Grand Central Station and they are not bent but straight and that is simply because light only travels in a straight path and does not get bent unless you reflect it off something.

Imagine a tree off in the distance. We may focus our eyes on the top branches of the tree but light from the trunk and the branches facing us is still traveling into our eyes. The same is happening with the pinhole and the light source. But why is the image upside down on the screen? Here is where we have to think about the path of light.

We aim our pinhole viewer at the tree and notice that the tree’s image on the tape screen is upside down. Imagine a ray of light from the top branch of the tree traveling toward the pinhole. Since the pinhole is so small, only this ray and a few others from the top branch can pass through the hole. The light rays haven’t encountered any different media, so they travel in a straight path from the tree branch to the screen. Notice in the image above that the rays from the top branch and from the trunk have to cross at the pinhole in order to pass through. This is what causes the image of the tree to be upside down.

First ever color photograph
This is the first permanent color photograph, made in 1861 by the Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell. It is called “The Tartan Ribbon.” 5

image: “The Tartan Ribbon.”

7 Over the years technology has improved a lot and the photography culture has grown with it. Every era in the modern age is documented by photography as well as changed by photography.
There are also different themes that photogrpahy can be sectioned into like:

1. War Photography
2. Fashion Photography
3. Wedding Photography
4. Cultural Photography

etc…

We now take cameras for granted. Everyone has a camera. There are Still cameras, digital or analog cameras, video cameras, movie cameras, special effects cameras, web cameras, surveillance/ security cameras, phone cameras, among others.
Traditional cameras capture light onto photographic film or photo plates. Video and digital cameras use electronics to capture images which can be transferred or stored in tape or computer memory inside the camera for later playback.
Cameras that capture many images in sequence are known as movie cameras. Those designed for single images are still cameras. However these categories overlap, as still cameras are often used to capture moving images in special effects work and modern digital cameras are often able to trivially switch between still and motion recording modes. A video cameras is a category of movie camera which captures images electronically (either using analogue or digital technology). 3
The 5 Best Camera Brands: 4

1. Kodak
2. Canon
3. Olympus
4. Fuji
5. Nikon

The biggest camera invention I’m waiting for is the Surface computer which uses a number of cameras to update some already used daily concepts in our lives. http://www.microsoft.com/surface/

LIST OF 25 USES FOR A CAMERA:

1. Camera glasses / Eyes for Blind people
2. Playground / Get away room
3. New Persona (for celebrities)
4. As a necklace (more expensive with images)
5. As a mirror
6. As a belt buckle
7. Heels (zoom out to be taller)
8. Handbag
9. Bra
10. Camera Keys w/locks
11. As Currency
12. as clocks or timers (in pinhole format when enough light the shutter closes)
13. Pacemakers
14. Cameras as Teachers
15. Disposable flayers
16. Light source in 3rd world countries
17. Place mats with screens to match the decor
18. Posters
19. Art work
20. Building foundation
21. Music makers
22. Glow sticks
23. Mouse trap (the flap on an old SLR camera)
24. Kaleidoscope
25. Camera Bouquet (instead of flowers have different disposable pics on each camera and wont be reusable)
26. Time capsule
27. A Trojan horse

References

1. Nicholas J. Wade, Stanley Finger (2001), “The eye as an optical instrument: from camera obscura to Helmholtz’s perspective”, Perception 30 (10), p. 1157 – 1177.
2. Explanatory Notes (section) of David Constantine’s 1994 translation of Goethe Oxford University Press.
3. Auto Focus – How Stuff Works http://www.howstuffworks.com
4. MegaResoluyion.com, The best camera brands.
5. Mahon, Basil (2003). The Man Who Changed Everything – the Life of James Clerk Maxwell . Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. ISBN.
6. Pinhole Camera and how to make your very own. http://www.exploratorium.edu
7. Photography: A Cultural History (2nd Edition). Mary Warner Merian. (Barnes & Nobel)

Image References

Large format camera lens. wikipedia.com 15 September 2007
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camera#Exposure_control

Camera Obscura image: wikipedia.com 15 September 2007
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Camera_obscura.jpg

Visible Light Spectrum. image: http://www.glenbrook.k12.il.us 11 September 2007
http://www.glenbrook.k12.il.us/GBSSCI/PHYS/CLASS/light/u12l2a.html

image: Aperture. 11 September 2007
http://www.tpub.com

image: Diaphragm 11 September 2007
http://www.utata.org/g/techtata/aperturea.jpg

image: “The Tartan Ribbon.” 15 September 2007
http://christianpatterson.com/blog/archives/category/technology/