I first became interested in how elements of the environment could participate in the image making process during the “Beneath” project. For “Beneath” I was using a modified film development tank as a pinhole camera. As I was filling the tank with water in order to make the photograph, I realized that the water became an active component in the image making process.
I was interested in seeing how the water collected from the environment where the image was being made, could contribute to the final image. The clarity and quality of the water all had an effect on the final image.
I constructed the camera around a 4×5 film holder and a salvaged shutter from a discarded Nettar camera. I created a compartment in the front of the camera to hold a plastic sphere that I could fill with water. I filled the sphere with water that I collected on location, placed it in the compartment and taped it shut to make it light tight. The light entered through the shutter and the water filled sphere became the lens to form the image.
I made the exposures onto photo paper that I had loaded into the film holder. Most of the images had exposure times of 1/25 of a second.
