What is a symbolic camera? I had never heard the term before... Apparently it is a homemade object which represents a personalised camera. This object can be made from any material, take any shape or form, and does not necessarily need to look like a camera. However what it must be, is personal. It must link to the person making it in some way, it must be symbolic.
After our seminar where we got the information necessary to create this, I was excited to start on the project. I love making things with my hands, and especially working out how things work. I was not really thinking of the personalised symbolic side of it at this point, as I was engrossed in the mechanics of the construction. I figured the rest would come as the camera formed...
It was a sunny day and I decided to walk home, down Elliot Footpath, across town, and through Wincheap. As I was walking, I started constructing the camera in my head and by the time I got home, I knew what materials I needed. I immediately searched our recycling bin for cardboard, tin cans, and plastic packaging. I then gathered some random objects I found in my room that I could afford to lose such as old laces, buttons, pins, shells, corks, bottle tops etc... Finally I got two types of tape (a smooth black one and a paper coloured one that you can paint on), some scissors and some paint and paintbrushes.
...about an hour later... my symbolic camera was born.
I decided to paint trees and greenery on the outside because I thought it looked too square and black at first. This added a personalised note to it since to me nature is everything. I believe in living sustainably so as to avoid harming the environment, I grew up in a small village in the Corsican mountains surrounded by wildlife, and I am always happiest outdoors whether it be swimming in the sea, climbing a cliff, walking through a forest or canoeing down a river.