This project was a rather fun one because to start the process you have to build the camera. A light tight, hollow object (in this case I used an old film case, but it could be anything) is drilled to create a pencil width hole. This hole is covered with an aluminum square piece that also has a hole in it. The whole should be as tiny as possible (we used a pin as is suggested in the name) and be clear of all obstacles like the lip of the aluminum from where the pin was pushed in. We sanded this area and cleared out the hole by blowing on it and twisting the tip of the pin in the whole. This piece was then taped down on all four sides to prevent light leaks. It is then covered by an orange filter (see through plastic) to help the quality of the light filtered through and to protect the photo paper that you put inside the camera. Finally we covered the aperture with a thick black paper shutter and used tape to make it into a close-able flap. The point is to let no light in until the image is ready to be captured.
Once the camera is made, photo paper from the dark room is inserted into the camera to face the aperture and the lid is secured onto the cylinder. The paper is then exposed to the subject or scenery once the shutter is moved. This was a difficult process because sometimes the exposures took multiple attempts to figure out and sometimes the position or location of the object had to be changed in order to create an acceptable image. After developing (a process of 2 mins in the developer chemicals, a 30 sec dip in the stop bath, a 5 min soak in the fixer, and finally a 20 min bath in water to clear the photo paper of the chemicals) it is squeegeed and left to dry. Once the image is dried it is matted onto a colored piece of paper (about 1/4 in. bigger than the photo) and then mounted on a white U.S. standard sized paper.
This process in particular called for making negatives (the original developed image) into positives (an inverted image) in the dark room with enlargers. For this, a test strip was placed right side up underneath the upside-down negative and subjected to varying light exposures (ranging from 4 - 6 sec intervals). This test strip was used to decide the final amount of time to expose the photo paper. The positives below are the products of 25 second exposures with the enlargers aperture wide open.
