The Camera Obscura is ideally suited for helping students understand by experience how the eye works. The simple parallel between the pinhole camera and the eye allows meaningful instruction in anatomy and physiology as well as physics of light. When equipped with light sensitive paper the art and chemistry of photography can be taught. Longer workshops make use of the dark room facilities of the trailer.
Students build individual pinhole cameras and develop their own photographs.
He has conducted workshops and residencies using the camera obscura and other lens-less photographic techniques throughout the Southeast for more than 20 years. His approach with camera lends itself to interdisciplinary use in the schools. Drama, history, language, the physical sciences all can be approached using the camera as a vehicle. Currently he is conducting his unique style at fairs and schools with a renaissance version of a camera obscura. In working with students, Ms. Paulsen uses film and video as a tool to stimulate their natural creativity and to improve their creative writing and thinking skills.