True story: An MFA student at the University of Hertfordshire in the U.K. made a pin-hole camera using an empty beer can. The student attached the beer-can cam (or, perhaps “beer-cam” is more apt and concise?) to the side of a telescopic dome at the university’s Bayfordbury Observatory and aimed it at the sun. Then she forgot about it. That was in 2012.
Meanwhile the beer-cam was continuing to take one very, very long photo. Until its recent discovery, the film in the camera had been continuously exposed. For eight years! FOR EIGHT YEARS! This is, perhaps, the longest photo exposure ever.
Known as a solargraph, the image shows the changing path of the sun season after season, year after year, forming a long, bright arc of sun trails filling the sky. The image is a record of some 2,953 sun days. Regina Valkenborgh was the student who made and set up the camera at the the observatory in 2012.
We’re feeling inspired by this.
GLOBAL GRAPHICA 