Hi, my name is Sam Cornwell and I'm a photographer, artist, astronomer & inventor. I'd like to share my story with you.
I promise to inspire, teach, question and answer. If you read any of my posts and haven't learnt something new, or felt inspired then I have failed.
Please follow me on Steemit
For my first post I'd like to share with you my journey in building a camera from scratch and turning it into a mass produced, marketed and fully developed product. Its name is Solarcan and here this is my story.
It was the winter solstice. Up in Scotland the skies get dark quickly and it's cold to boot. Around this time of year it's typical to feel a void of creativity, some call it a sadness. I recall seeing a friend share a post about making a solargraphy camera out of a beer can. It sparked my imagination because not only was it something I always wanted to do, but it was the perfect time of year to install one to achieve the very best results. I quickly rounded up film photography supplies I had stored in cupboards, caravans and the like and headed to the supermarket to pick up the cheapest beer I could find.
The struggles artists have to go through...
After pouring the weak-as-mouse-pee beverage down the drain (yes, honest) my wife and I got to work on building prototypes. The first 24 we made were either placed locally or given to friends as Christmas presents. As it was the 21st December and we were practically penniless we felt it was a nice gesture.
I made a further 8 in my excitement and decided to list them on a popular arts and crafts selling site for $10 each. Surely people would be interested and want to take part. The reality was far from this though. Not a single solargraphy can sold. Not even one.
Convinced it was something to do with presentation I set myself the task in January 2017 of creating a mass produced, fully sealed, ready to sell in a shop version of the beer-can solargraphy camera. I considered it briefly and with a quick calculation in my head thought it would take around a week and £100 including travel to realise a single prototype which I could expand on.
Oh I was so wrong.
It quickly became apparent that a few quick phone calls and trips wouldn't cut it. I have here a document listing every step of Solarcan's creation in chronological order and it goes on for pages and pages. To be brief, because I'm sure it's not fun reading I ended up spending 4 months realising something that looked so simple.
The Solarcan:
I spent the best part of $5000 on everything I needed to create the first 1000 Solarcans. This included some heavy machinery, several thousand 'raw' aluminium cans, labels, the photographic paper to be inserted inside and more. Even the packaging - which turned out to be one of the most expensive parts - cost good money.
There's no hiding that the Solarcan is built to be the very simplest form of camera you can buy. My intention formed naturally over time into it being as much about a camera as it is a learning experience. For all intents and purposes this is something a proficient and experienced photographer could do themselves, however the intended market for the final product would be digital photographers who wanted to learn more, artists, school children and astronomers.
Solarcan is more than just a camera, it's an experiment in science & art.
So, what exactly makes the Solarcan different? What does it do?
Here's the text printed on the side:
Born from a love of photography, art & astronomy Solarcan is a unique camera designed to produce extreme time exposures that capture the Sun’s path across the sky.
In short, it's a pinhole camera that uses photographic paper (not film) to capture the path of the sun through the sky. Over a prolonged period of time (the optimum being the 6 months from solstice to solstice) the light that passes through the 0.5mm pinhole will effectively burn lines across the sheet of paper on a daily basis.
Earth has a 23.5 degree tilt on its axis and as we orbit the Sun, it appears at different latitudes in the sky throughout the year. The is what causes the Sun to be higher in the Summer and its lowest in the winter.
Once you've finished your exposure / have run out of patience you remove your Solarcan from its installed location, retrieve the paper from inside to photograph or scan and invert the image:
Bringing it to market was the biggest leap of faith I had to make. Having never used the Kickstarter crowd funding platform before but always wanting to I felt this was the perfect opportunity. By crowd funding pledges for single Solarcans and packs of five I'd be able to gauge just how popular they were and how many I'd need to build in time to ship after the fundraiser ended. I somewhat pessimistically set a goal of £2000 with a 30 day time slot to reach it.
We only needed 34 hours!
The type of camera, far from unique had never been brought to market before as a mass-produced product. The Kickstarter was picked up very quickly by the huge design and photography blogs PetaPixel, Designboom, Lomography and more. For a brief period I'm proud to admit it was the most popular photography Kickstarter on the planet. In the end it fielded 1000% of its original goal. I was stunned.
You can view the Kickstarter, which includes a video introduction here: Solarcan Kickstarter
Why was the Solarcan so successful?
On reflection the hard work on Solarcan's design and presentation probably played more of a role in its unprecedented success than I wanted to admit at first. Perhaps I got lucky with the marketing photographs or the low single unit cost. You may remember my original attempt fell flat on its face, which speaks volumes and adding proof that perhaps Solarcan is more a lesson in marketing than invention.
To date 1000 Solarcans have shipped, with another 2000 in the pipeline to prepare in my small gallery-come-factory.
I hope my story has inspired you to do something, create something, or make something. Whatever it is, don't give up the hard work, it's worth it in the end.
Sam.
Welcome
Thank you very much. I'll head over and check your blog now.
Sam.
Welcome to Steemit.
great post.
Welcome to Steem @samcornwell I have sent you a tip
Hi there & thank you. I'm incredibly new here so I'm not sure what that means. I'm sure I'll find out soon.
Welcome to Steemit @samcornwell :)
Make sure to participate in this weeks giveaway to get known in the community!
Here are some helpful tips to get you started:
This is completely outstanding. Look forward to more. Upvoted and following you now.
Hi there, that is very kind of you. Will follow you back immediately.
Jess is one of our local friends, Sam. I think you guys would have a lot to talk about! :D
Very happy you're here!
Hi Jess, hi Caz! :-D
So glad to see you here, Sam! Kent Frost here. I should've known you'd be a fantastic member of this community and am embarrassed I didn't message you sooner about it personally. Good luck and have fun!
My pleasure. Hi Kent! How come you're not using your real name? Have I made a mistake using mine? - Oh I've followed you of course.
Haha! No, I actually have another FB page that's under Winston Wolfe. I've also taken up hosting a podcast called Steemit Talk Podcast where I use that as my host name, but I have no problem posting stuff that has my real name on it. Yeah, this place has changed my life.
Followed you back.
Ooooh, and hey! You need to post that Second-Per-Day-Since-Birth video you made! That would do great here!
Oh brill. Understood Captain Wolfe. I'll see how it goes as far as topics are concerned. I've hundreds of projects as you know already. It's nice to have an outlet to share & inspire.
okay....i might not have understood most of the things that you have written but you are my first encounter with an astronomer...
:)
so Hi5
ps. I cant upvote you at the moemnt but im following and resteeming your post
Hi there! If there's anything I can explain, please go ahead and ask. I'm not sure what you mean about not being able to upvote but I'm sure I'll learn soon. I'll follow you now. Nice to meet you :-D
well i am more of art person...media and journalism is my field...anything technical just fly over my head :P
I cnnot vote because my steem power is low at the moment . it wont even help you.....(this is also technical stuff..my friend told me :P)
So awesome!
Thank you Mr Jam! Inspired I hope.
Upvoted, resteemed, and following! Amazing!
:-O Wow, I feel honoured. I've followed you back and I'll check your stuff out. If you have any feedback I'm happy to help.
Welcome to Steemit! Your invention seems wonderful. I am totally interested and will need to go through your post again.
Happy Steemit journey!
Thank you Knowledge1! Let me know if you need anything explaining. As simple as I state it is, I do understand how some of the ideas can be complex if you don't have a science or photographic background. I'll follow you too.
Nice article. Just goes to show what you can do with varied interests or hobbies and the will to make your creations come to life! Inspiring!
So, welcome to Steemit! Glad to have you aboard!
Thank you very much. I've always struggled pigeon holing myself and I feel only recently I found the right balance. I've just followed you too.
Thanks! I was a bit uncertain how folks were gonna react to my new "Welcome!" banner! It's a photo of my son taken when he was young that I dug up from my archives... I've been having fun playing around on this site since I joined a month ago. Never did like Facebook, but Steemit is a whole different venue. Hope you like what you find here!
Excellent post, that is so cool, I've seen this type of photography before but never tried it. Do you have to open the can in a dark room to prevent the film from exposure to light?
Btw followed you to see more from you! And welcome to Steemit Sam!
Post Re-steemed!
followed too!
No, you don't need a darkroom or chemicals. You won't be surprised to hear that that was the most frequently asked question. The Solarcan can be opened in subdued light without any immediate degradation to the paper inside. Neat, huh?!
Hehehe, neat-o!
Wow, that's really really cool. Nice job!!!
Thank you Gringa ! I will follow you right away.
I did a workshop of pinhole photography last year in my town and I loved it! Thanks for sharing this, it's a perfect introduction! Followed!
Brilliant! It's very rewarding getting people into the very basics of photography. The learning experience is enhanced so much! I have of course followed you back.
Did you make any cameras and how did they turn out?
Welcome to steemit community @samcornwell
Hi Cris, thank you for the welcome. I'll follow you to check out your stuff.
Sam.
Thanks
This is so cool. Thanks for sharing your journey of invention and fundraising for such a sciency initiative. Upvoted, resteemed and followed!
Hi Kiligirl, that is very kind of you. I'm sensing you're a fellow #STEM advocate? (Or #STEAM if you like the contemporary update.) I've followed you.
Sam.
You totally get me, @samcornwell. #STEM and #STEAM it is (I'm not fussy or exclusive). Look for more on that front in the next few months 😉
Welcome to Steemit, @samcornwell!
Can't believe you're new here, see how many votes your post got and the value it worths now! Well done. Your post for sure teach me something but also leave me with one question: where and how should you put the camera in order to ensure the extended long exposure time, you are talking about months? How to deal with weather changes is my main question.
Anyway, welcome again and happy Steeming!
Hi Guy, great question. Let me answer that for you.
Depending on where you live in the world will determine where and how to place your camera. It has a field of view of 160 degrees by 70 degrees and really needs to be facing the path of the Sun. For us in the Southern hemisphere that would be South! So yes, I'd advise anything over a couple of months. The longer you leave it the better.
As for the weather, Solarcan is a fairly robust camera made out of aluminium. It can dent, freeze, overheat and you'll still be able to pull an image out of it. The wonder of having such a simple camera is that it's very difficult to break.
Hope that helps. Followed!
Sam.
This is awesome!
Hi Nords,
Thank you very much! I wish you spoke more so I had something to reply to. I'll head over to your channel and see what you've got.
Sam.
ha, no worries, this is new to me and I am currently googling about this type of photography, and the solarcan, so I don't have much to say (yet), other than I'm glad you're doing this both form an entrepreneur, and from a photographic side.
You can check out our Instagram: http://instagram.com/thesolarcan
I'm really happy to help explain if there's anything you're unsure about.
Wow cool!
I will give you a follow with that kind of an intro for sure!
Hope you enjoy steemit and contribute valuable content!
Very kind of you Quinneaker. I've followed you also. I've already made some other posts and as long as the excitement here continues so will I.
Yes, there may be some downs but this Steem train is on for a glorious ride!
Full Steem Ahead~*~
Welcome to Steemit, I'm sure you will love it here. A great, very friendly place with loads of creativity. Really enjoyed your post here, very creative idea. Glad it did so well. I would think schools and science project groups would be very interested.
That is quite the setup you have for star gazing. Looks like much fun. Welcome again, and enjoy.
Hi and thank you. The self portrait up top was actually when I worked at a public observatory. Sadly no longer there but I still keep my eye on the stars.
Great story! So cool to be able to see people be able to do the things they are passionate about! Very inspiring!
If you love your job, you'll never work another day in your life, or say they say. I try to stick by that.
Wow that is really cool, thank you for sharing!
That's no problem. I hope you were able to take something away from it.
Hey @samcornwell! Welcome! I love your drive to inspire others with your posts :) I have a similar drive towards inspiring others to eat healthy. I look forward to seeing more of your work!
Hello! Welcome to Steemit. I like reading about your invention! I like photography and followed! :)
Very interesting post! I had never heard of solargraphy.
Thank you.
A pleasure to know you @samcornwell. I'm a photographer and one of the greatest things I admire is somebody making his own camera! All the best for your enterprise. And welcome to Steemit! :) And now I think you should add "writer" also to your other occupations. :)
SIIICK. HOWS EVERYBODY DOING?
Wow your story is incredible and you certainly earned a follow.
Very intriguing story. Thanks for sharing. I remember watching those invention commercials when I was little. I have a huge respect for inventors.
thanks for your story, very inspired for me...