On Sun, 30 Sep 2001, Jake S. Boen wrote: > I'm thinking of applying for a fellowship of which I would research camera > making and its role in the education of photography.
I don't know enough about formal photography education to help much here. My gut feeling is that camera making isn't something that is often taught in a photography school. Most people just buy a commercial camera. I guess I'd say that camera making is kind of an art in itself, and is closer in many respects to engineering. For example, I know of engineers who are not photographers who have worked on designing cameras. (Companies hire engineers for this kind of thing, and there are a number of specialized scientific designs not generally used for artistic or commercial photography.) The number of photographers who build their own equipment seems to be quite a bit less. > What are the names of famous photographers who made their own cameras and > used them on a somewhat daily basis? This seems kind of a tough question. Are you talking about people who designed and built their own cameras completely from scratch, or do you include in this those who simply modify existing equipment to meet some need? If you mean the first of these, I'd hazard to guess that the numbers are small. If you really mean the later, then in some respects almost all photographers are involved to some degree. Especially if you allow for equipment other than specifically cameras. > Do you know of any photography institutions who teach camera making in their > curriculum besides pinholes? You might check the following: http://www.rit.edu/~661www/departments/imaging_photo.html http://www.rit.edu/~andpph/ipt.html > Do you think that students are missing out by not building their own cameras? Depends on the student and his/her goals I'd guess. Probably also depends on what you mean by "missing out". > The end product would hopefully demonstrate the need for institutions to > teach the subject matter and to present a design of a simple monorail camera > that anyone can make, use, and learn basic LF principles. I guess I'd argue that the skills and knowledge are already available, and taught. What may obscure this is that we live in a society that tends to honor specialization rather than generalization. Camera making is a fairly general topic that spans at the very least the following specialized disciplines: - Mechanical Engineering - Materials Engineering - Optical Engineering - Electrical Engineering - Computer and Software Engineering - Machining and tool making - Wood Working - Mold making - Chemistry and Chemical Engineering - Ergonomics and human use engineering This could be expanded further into sub-disciplines of each of these, and/or consolidated into the broader overview sciences such as Physics. This list focuses more on the applied sciences as used for manufacturing. Basically, if you were a camera making company such as Nikon these would be the kinds of people you would probably hire, along with some photographers and marketing people to help direct the design in a direction that makes sense artistically. I guess the question I'd have to ask is whether or not you think that the artist who makes his or her own camera can somehow create better art than the person without this experience? I'm not too sure that there is, or even should be, an answer? Seems like kind of a personal issue to me. - Wayde ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) _______________________________________________ Cameramakers mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://rmp.opusis.com/mailman/listinfo/cameramakers
