Travelling in Analogue with Camper Obscura

Camper Obscura is an outreach project for Fotonow. They set up a vintage VW van as a mobile camera obscura with the aim to visit communities around the South West of the UK, delivering photography workshops and events to schools and colleges. We gave them an LC-Wide to document their fantastic journey helping people engage with photography.

Tell us a bit about yourself and your project?

We're Fotonow, a socially engaged media organization based in Plymouth. We run the Camper Obscura project which is a mobile camera obscura inside a vintage VW camper van! We love analogue photography and the reaction we get when people engage with retro tech. The Lomo'Instant Wide has been a really fun bit of kit to carry inside the Camper Obscura as we head out to festivals and community events.

How did you get on shooting with the LC-Wide?

The LC-Wide is pocket sized, people assumed we were reaching for a phone and were surprised to see the Lomo in our hands. It's wonderful to not see what you've shot immediately. We enjoy conversations that running Camper Obscura allows us to have, being able to make photographs without the need to stare at a screen adds to this shared experience. We liked the camera, 'a lot'!

What did you choose to shoot?

We tested the camera our while running the Camper Obscura one day in Devonport in Plymouth. The sun was shining so we hoped we'd get some bold shots! We then headed up to Knowle West Media Centre in Bristol to work with young people documenting where they live so let them have a play with the camera too!

What’s coming up in 2017?

We're taking bookings for events currently and in the middle of planning a tour of North Devon. We hope to find lots of new partners to work with and ensure that the Camper Obscura does some new things into the future. We've been to most of the UK's major photo festivals and run lots of workshops too, but a recent refit allows us to do lots more now, we're thinking about how the Camper might event be a mobile artist residency space too!

To find out more visit www.camperobscura.co.uk

2017-06-03 #news #pinhole #project #brighton #bristol #community #london #uk #camera-obscura #giant-camera #south-west #camper-obscura