Camera Obscura Image of the Grand Tetons in Resort Room
Photography

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Camera Obscura Image of the Grand Tetons in Resort Room
Artwork Details
Artist/Maker
Abelardo Morell
American, born Cuba, 1948
American, born Cuba, 1948
Date
1997
Medium
Gelatin silver print
Accession #
2002.279
Dimensions
Please contact the Museum for more information.
Location
Currently Not on View
Description
This photograph demonstrates the basic scientific principles of a camera obscura: if a lens or aperture is placed in one side of a completely dark chamber, it will select and focus the rays of light from the outside to create an inverted image of the external scene projected onto a surface opposite to the chamber.
Morell’s “Camera Obscura” series features many surreal scenes such as skyscrapers inverted on New York hotel room walls, but this view of the rugged Grand Tetons landscape projected upside-down into the safe and bland bedroom, carefully centered on a small elk statue, is an especially playful and ironic commentary on the way we inhabit, experience, and photograph the natural landscape.
Credit
Purchase with funds from the H. B. and Doris Massey Charitable TrustImage Copyright
© Abelardo Morell.