The symbolic camera is an artistic piece meant to represent my intentions for the film I wanted to make at the beginning of the Visual Anthropology module. It also represents myself, my persona, and it is a powerful medium, or object, through which I explored my assumptions on what is the role of a camera. However, my symbolic camera is not confined to the realm of symbols - no - if one has time and patience it can also be a real camera, loaded with photographic paper... one single shot to be taken at the right time.
It is made out of cardboard, blackened on the inside so to allow less light in, and a tiny piece of metal with a pinhole, which if uncovered allows the light to hit the photographic paper on the inside, and thus take a picture. It is not an usual picture; it is different from how one's mobile phone or digital camera works. Here you need long exposures, of second if not minutes and to be extremely steady. Even the process to get the picture out of the paper is time intensive and requires great care and patience. It is a symbolic camera steeped in time.
