Prototype camera obscura made from chipboard and duct tape.

Finished camera obscura, make from 3/4in birch plywood.

The side door is open, ready to change cartridges.  The latch shown opens a top door where a camera can be placed to record what the camera obscura sees.  In practice, it turned out to be just as easy to hold me phone's camera up to the eye hole.

Four cartridges were also built with the obscura.  These are made of MDF frames holding acrylic panes with tracing paper glued to them.  The image coming through the aperture is projected onto the tracing paper and can be seen by the viewer through the other side.  By manipulating this surface, the image can be distorted.  It can be thought of as a sort of analog photo shop.

Here's a cartridge being changed.

I chose two iconic buildings of Lincoln, NE, the Wells Fargo building and the Sheldon Art Museum for the project.  Here is the Wells Fargo building.  This image is taken from a google images search.  

The Sheldon Art Museum.  This image is taken from a google images search.