Sunday morning, a lazy day awaits me. The bride is away snowboarding, I had a big day yesterday mowing lawns and bike riding. I had planned a few jobs today, piddley little things that needed to be done. I was having some crumpets and a cup of tea for breaky when the phone rang. It was an old mate that I used to work with. He was in the local area with his 2 sons, and wondered if it would be ok to drop in. “Sure, grab some milk on your way and I will make you a fancy coffee!” I replied. A fancy coffee to me is one that isn’t instant. He is a huge coffee man, and a hard judge. About 40 minutes later, they arrived.
Steve arrived. He looked relaxed and well. His two sons, Toby, a stout little bugger who is far to strong for any 12 year old, and Christopher, the brains of the outfit, is 10. The both met me with a firm hand shake and smiling faces. They sort of know me as the funny uncle who swears a bit. They are the sorts of kids that look at each other and snigger if I say “shit” out loud.
We settled down and had a coffee and the boys had their chocolate milks they bought with them. The talk got around to photography and Steve told me the boys are big fans of my Flickr photos. God bless ’em. Young Christopher being the inquisitive bugger he is, started asking questions. Before I knew it, I had all the cameras out on the bench, showing them all different aspects of cameras and photography. Toby then asked the question that set in motion 3 hours of fun and mayhem. “Todd, how does it work?” Crap, I was about to be found out. I tried explaining how light hits the sensor/film and exposes, but it wasn’t enough. I fired up episode one of “The Genius of Photography” where they black out a window and make a camera obscura. It blew both their little minds, in much the same way it blew my mind when I 1st saw it. “Lets do that!” suggested Toby. I am looking at Steve with a look of “get me out of this mate”. He stitches me up nicely. With a smile he says “I am sure Uncle Todd can sort that out!” You bastard! He then settles down on the couch to watch a bit of Top Gear, and the two boys and I get started.
I am wondering how the hell I am going to black out a window. I don’t have rolls of thick black plastic. I don’t have anything that I can block out sunlight with on the scale of a window. Bugger. I don’t want to let the boys down. They are getting excited. Then, I have an idea. “Hey boys, I don’t have the gear to do it on a grand scale like on the TV, but I reckon we can make a miniature one.” That is good enough for them.
Out to the shed we go. Now as any man with a shed knows, letting two young boys lose is a nightmare. “whats this do?” “Don’t touch anything sharp kids!” “this is heavy” etc etc. Luckily, they are both terrific kids and took direction well. First we tried an old box I had. After 50 minutes of drilling holes, sticking foil across the front, cutting a side out of it and sticking baking paper over the end, we just couldn’t get a good result out of it. We were all deflated. Steve appeared at the side gate with pies and custard tarts, our spirits picked up and we settled down for some lunch and did some rethinking. We demolished lunch, washed it down with Fanta and back into it. Loaded up with sugar we started again. An old coffee tin, a length of PVC piping and an old tea towel, and we were in business. I pretty much got the boys to do all the work, except anything I thought was dangerous. At one point Toby has his hand inside the coffee tin, cleaning it out. “Give me that, you’ll bloody cut your hand open on that!” I grabbed it, stuck my hand in it and sliced a huge cut in my finger. “Shiiii-iiiit!” Oh how the little buggers laughed. An hour later, we had our pinhole camera obscura.
You could hold it up and look in the end of it and see things upside down. The boys, and to be honest, me as well, were beside our selves with excitement. Toby walked into the side of the garage and ended up with a beautiful round bruise on his forehead. Oh how Christopher and I laughed.
“But it doesn’t take photos Uncle Todd” said Christopher. He had a point. Right, somehow, we had to get this sucker rigged up to a camera. Out comes the 5D. I mount it on a tripod and away we go. Oh the pain. No matter what I did, I couldn’t get it to expose properly. It was always dark. I took it off the camera and held it up to the light. Nothing. Dark. I looked at the pinhole. There, smack bang over the 1mm hole was a 1.1mm piece of tape had had cut off earlier in the day. What are the bloody chances? I removed it, mounted it on the camera, and after 15 minutes of lens changes and focussing, we had the following photo.
Hardly an award winning shot, but enough for the boys to want a print out of it. We had just spent the best part of 3 hours getting that shot. And the three of us were as happy as Larry. Steve was suitably under whelmed. But for me and the boys, it was a win.
They both left, clutching their photo in the cut free hands. Steve was happy, he had seen the last 5 episodes of Top Gear. The boys were happy, they had made a camera. And I was happy, I didn’t get any of my jobs done, but had a great day anyway.
They are moving up to Queensland in a few weeks time, and I won’t see them very often, so it was a treat to catch up with them. Steve rang me about 30 minutes after he left. They were both sound asleep. He asked me if I had got any good photos of the boys? “Would you believe I don’t?” I replied. He laughed and thanked me for a great day out. In all the excitement, I hadn’t taken a single photo of any of us. Shiii-iiiit!!!!!
