Sometimes we need to deviate from e-books and embrace print because of the visceral experience. This is most evident in a new pop-up book that doubles as a fully working camera.
Artist Kelli Anderson wrote a book entitled This Book Is A Camera. It’s a pop-up style reader that folds out to a working pinhole camera, producing black-and-white images with the help of light-sensitive film.
On her website she said “For the past couple of months, I’ve been searching for the right sequence of cuts and folds to turn a piece of paper into a camera. Specifically, I wanted to make a working camera within an educational pop-up book—one that connects the dots between design and science / structure and function. Happy to report: it is finally real! The final book explains—and actively demonstrates—how a structure as humble as a folded piece of paper can tap into the intrinsic properties of light to produce a photograph.”
“The book itself comes with detailed instructions and a starter pack of B/W Ilford photo paper (any 4×5” or smaller light-sensitive material can be used). There is nothing to assemble, but if you want to use it as more than a book, you need to feel alright with the concept of pouring developer into an old takeout food container and sloshing it around in the dark… while counting. Been prototyping this for a while, so this totally sounds like a normal human-in-a-dark-room activity. I tested it for a very long time and now my neighbors are probably questioning my sanity.”
With Christmas coming up, this might make an excellent gift for a young person. It is retailing directly off of the artists website for $29.99 US and PAYPAL is the only payment option.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.