For my Visual Anthropology class I had to create a symbolic camera that represents my future project. Unfortunately at the time of making it I was not sure what kind of ethnographic film to make. For me personally, a camera has to be a certain shape. I made my symbolic camera from a template I made of my Canon AE-1. Luckily I had a conveniently shaped tin can that was exactly 1.5x bigger than the lense on my AE-1, so my symbolic camera is exactly 1.5x bigger than my AE-1. I based my symbolic camera on my AE-1 because that camera is very meaningful to me, I fell in love with photography when using it. It was my dad's and he gave it to me when I had to do film photography for A-Level photography. My love of photography is what inspired me to take this module in visual anthropology so I wanted to symbolise that in the body of my symbolic camera. I replaced the canon logo with my own name because I thought it would be funny.
The picture above is me taking a selfie with my symbolic camera. I have decorated it with things I love. I recently learnt how to knit, which for a dyspraxic person was a great achievement for me, so I outlined my camera with wool. I also decorated it with origami paper, another creative outlet that I enjoy. I feel like my camera represents me quite well I am colorful and messy.
I put a photo of my friends in the back panel where on a film camera you would open it to insert or retrieve the film. I decided to use a photo that I had taken on my Canon AE-1 as a continuity between them. It also symbolises my love of my friends as I want to have the same rapport with the people I end up making my film about. I have photographed it here on my desk where it was made surrounded by all the fun coloured pens and paper that inspired, it. Overall I think my symbolic camera links well with the final film that I made, It is about things I love, games, told in a messy but colourful way.
I actually ended up using my symbolic camera to start the conversation about my film with some of my participants. I brought it along to one of my weekly board game nights and asked some of the people what they thought of it. Everyone liked playing with it as if it were a camera pressing the pipe cleaner button, that makes a satisfying noise, and twisting the tincan lense as if they were focusing on something. I like that my symbolic camera is tactile and fun and it was a good way to start chatting to people about the possibility of filming them.