From Primitive to Digital – media camp for young people 27.2.–3.3.2023

The Mikkeli Centre of Photography has organized training since its establishment, i.e. since 1988. In the 2010s, the focus has been on youth education without basic education requirements.

At the beginning of the camp, a camera obscura, i.e. a dark room, was built from one of the gallery rooms. A small hole was made in the aluminum foil covering the windows. An image of the opposite view was reflected through it. The destination was the shelters of the Urheilupuisto school, i.e. the barracks school.

[The principle of the camera obscura may have been used already in the Stone Age. Evidence for this is found in cave paintings, where the distortions of animal shapes seem to be caused by the fact that the surface onto which the image was obliquely reflected was not straight.]

The young people moved from the dark room to the operation of a digital SLR camera: frame plugs with a pinhole were installed on a few cameras. The Stone Age and modern times met.

Next, we got to know studio photography and realized together portraits and experimental movement sequences using, for example, a lightsaber.

We were introduced to image processing, exhibition planning and proofing. The end result is a joint exhibition for young people, which is open during the center's opening hours until the beginning of April.

The target group of the camp is young people born between 2007 and 2012, and the camp location is the Mikkeli Photo Center. Media camp’s students Luca Tanriverdi, Kauri Tuononen, Ville Maanselkä and Arttu Laine turned one of the gallery rooms into a camera obscura, i.e. a dark room.

The instructors of the camp are photography lecturer Pasi Räsämäki and MA, photo artist Olli Savio.

Media training for young people is supported by the Regional Administration Office of Eastern Finland, Education and Culture.