Earlier this week, we shared how photography student Mark Hilton has been hard at work constructing a 20×16-inch ultra-large-format camera by hand. If you found that impressive, get a load of photographer Tim Pearse’s handmade 20×24-inch view camera.
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South East England-based photography student Mark Hilton came up with an ambitious New Year’s resolution this year: he’s in the process of building his own 20×16 “ultra-large-format” camera by hand. It’s a camera that’s designed to expose Ilford Harman Direct Positive paper.
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Feast your eyes on this gorgeous twin-lens reflex camera that was designed and built from scratch by photographer Kevin Kadooka, a mechanical engineering student at the University of Portland. It uses a Mamiya-Sekor 105mm f/3.5 Chrome lens and has a Polaroid back for shooting 4.25×3.5-inch instant film, and is crafted out of laser-cut birch plywood.
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This fascinating video by Hayley Morris for Hilary Hahn and Hauschka’s “Bounce Bounce” is both a very creative use of stop motion, and a testament to her skill as a craftsman. She actually created the entire underwater world, sketching and creating the characters herself. If you’re interested in seeing how she goes about creating this magical world, here’s a video featuring her work by Sketchbook films: Read more…
This might look like a pile of garbage, but it’s actually one of the homemade camera used by photographer Miroslav Tichý from the 1960s until 1985. He made his camera bodies from things he had on hand, including plywood, road asphalt, and thread spools. His lenses would be created from toilet paper tubes with custom lenses created from Plexiglas that had been sanded with sandpaper and then polished with toothpaste and cigarette ashes. For his enlarger, he used sheets of metal, two fence slats, a light bulb, and a tin can. Tichý used his equipment to take thousands of stalker-ish pictures of strangers (mostly women) in the Czech Republic. You can find some of his work here.
(via Flavorwire)
When husband and wife photography duo Jodi and Kurt got married last year, they were determined to do something photography-related for the guys’ boutonnières. Luckily for them, Kurt’s sister Lynn is a brilliant wedding stylist who helped make these one-of-a-kind designs. Kurt’s featured an old camera lens, while the best man’s was a flower made from film negatives.
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If you’ve ever wanted a lens to hug at night but found your actual glass to be a bit uncomfortable, then these plush pillows are designed for you. Plushtography is a new company that makes these lens-lookalike pillows by hand using “fleece, felt, and a little bit of love”. You can buy a small prime pillow for $41 with shipping included or a pro zoom lens for $77.
Plushtography (via Photojojo)
Beth Blafka (known as bethtastic on Etsy) makes hand casted resin bangles that look like old film negatives. Each one is hand made — and therefore unique — and costs $65 from her store. At this price it’s a fashion accessory that fits between the focal length gel bracelets ($10) and the cuffs created from old lenses ($201) that we featured before.
old film negative hand cast resin bangle, bracelet (via KEH Camera Blog)
Erin Paysse sells one-of-a-kind pinhole cameras created by upcycling vintage hardback books. Each camera has a magnetic shutter and is designed to take standard 35mm film.
The camera comes with it’s own set of instructions on how to load, shoot, and remove film, approximate exposure times, number of turns to advance each frame, as well as sample photos taken from some of my many cameras. Each camera takes very different pictures, so get ready to experiment with this incredible camera!
Each camera costs about $200 and can be purchased through Paysse’s Etsy store.
Mats Wernersson’s website is aptly named, “The Camera Maker“. Wernersson creates his own custom cameras by hand, making everything from 9×12 field cameras to “frankencameras” created for specific purposes from existing bodies. The above camera is a 3D 35mm camera created by fusing two Konica FS1 bodies together.
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