Light, Action, Camera

Do you remember making a pinhole camera as a child? If yes, it’s probably a happy memory, linked to a sense of accomplishment. If no, there’s a chance for you to provide your kids with that happy experience--at an event this weekend entitled “Container to Camera: The Craft of Photography.”

The workshop, led by photographer-teacher Paul Saivetz on Sunday at the Skirball Cultural Center, runs from 1-4 p.m., with a concluding session Tuesday from 2-4 p.m. The Skirball staff’s supervision allows the center to call the workshop a “drop-off event.” But advanced registration is essential.

Making a pinhole camera from a rolled-oats container, taking pictures, developing and printing them, Saivetz says, “is a way to show photography at its barest essentials.”

Modern cameras, in his opinion, “make it easy to forget what it’s all about--99% of the electronics (in them) are overkill, auto focus, aperture control, auto-rewind, etc. Ultimately, it’s [about] light onto film.”

A science and photography teacher at Newbridge School, a private elementary campus in Santa Monica, and a veteran of teaching pinhole workshops in the inner city and at the Getty Center, Saivetz says his workshops are “more a scientific than an art class.”

Because the goal is to make a camera the child can take home, kids pay unusually close attention to the basic principles. “Kids of all ages and groups get it,” says Saivetz. “It’s a great equalizer.”

He will begin the Skirball workshop by explaining these principles and how to work with the materials he provides--empty cereal containers, photo paper, masking tape, X-Acto knives, scissors, etc.

With the aid of Skirball volunteers, kids will cut a little window in the side of the cardboard cylinder. Over that, they will tape a square of aluminum--cut from a soda can--in which a hole will have been made with a straight pin. Then kids will make a flap of tape to cover the pin hole. This flap is the “shutter,” which can be removed for about 20 seconds to expose a piece of photo paper inside the carton.

The piece of photo paper, about 5 by 7 inches, will be taped inside the carton while the kids are in a darkroom setting--where they’ll work under red-filtered lights. It will be the first of three darkroom episodes. The next will be to develop the negatives, also Sunday, and the final one will be to make prints Tuesday.

Before kids are allowed to take pictures, which they will do on the Skirball grounds during the first session, they will learn how to get the best results with the handmade cameras.

“It makes a very wide-angle picture,” Saivetz says. “Since this camera’s back is rounded, you get a fish-eye-type photo, so they should not get closer to their subject than 6 feet, and they should rest the camera on the ground or a bench so it doesn’t wobble.”

The pinhole camera’s first-time success rate is high with kids, Saivetz reports. “Of 30 kids, 20 get a successful photo.”

BE THERE

“Container to Camera: The Art and Craft of Photography,” workshop with photographer Paul Saivetz for kids 8-14, Sunday, 1-4 p.m. and Tuesday, 2-4 p.m. Skirball Cultural Center, 2701 N. Sepulveda Blvd. Advance registration required; (310) 440-4636.