All photos © Abelardo Morell. Above: Photographed with a tent camera on a rooftop capturing the view view of the Brooklyn Bridge.

Abelardo Morell’s camera obscura technique has taken him from photographing his own living room to interiors across the globe. “One of the satisfactions I get from making this imagery comes from my seeing the weird and yet natural marriage of the inside and outside”,  he says. In setting up a room to make this kind of photograph he covers all windows with plastic in order to achieve total darkness. Then he cuts one small hole in the materials that he uses to cover the windows. An inverted image of the view outside then floods onto the walls in the room. He focuses the large-format camera on the incoming image on the wall and exposes the film.
Morell recently designed a light proof tent that, via periscope type optics, makes it possible to project a view of the nearby landscape onto whatever ground is under the tent. Inside this darkened space he uses a view camera to record the effect. He says, “I think it is a rather wonderful sandwich of two outdoor realities coming together. This Tent-Camera now liberates me to use camera obscura techniques in a world of new places. I now have a portable room, so to speak.”

Currently Morell’s work is on view in the exhibition, Groundwork, at the Bonni Benrubi Gallery and another exhibition, The Universe Next Door, at the Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery.

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Robert Mapplethorpe, Lisa Lyon, 1982, gelatin silver print, 16 x 20 in (40.6 x 50.8 cm), © Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation. Used by permission.

This photograph is part of an exhibition, Robert Mapplethorpe: Perfection In Form, currently on view at the Galleria dell’Accademia in Florence, Italy. The show presents Mapplethorpe’s work alongside sculptures by Michelangelo, who was a major influence on the photographer. This is the first exhibition of work by a post-Renaissance artist at the Galleria dell’Academia, and is also the first major photography exhibition at a Florentine state museum. The show opened in May and was due to come down at the end of the summer, but due to popularity the closing date was recently extended to January 10, 2010.