CAMERA OBSCURA
by John Chiara
I took this 40 by 30-inch photograph using a large Camera Obscura I cart around on
a trailer to shoot directly onto Ilfochrome paper. Since I wanted to capture the movement of the water in
the ocean, I trained the camera at an intense late afternoon glare produced by the sun reflecting off of the
sea’s surface at the edge of Rockaway Beach in Pacifica, CA. I adjusted the aperture from F128 to F90 so
the exposure would be cut in half to 37 seconds because too long of an exposure the ocean can turn into
a sea of glass. During the exposure, I changed the filtration while also waving my hand quickly in front of
the lens to stop motion the longer exposure into several hundred blips of tempered light hitting the paper’s
emulsion—capturing something close to the sensation of watching waves break onto the shore.
John Chiara, Rockaway Beach at Sea Breeze Motel, 2017.
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