TWO photographers and a geologist have joined forces to create an exploration of light and time for Scarborough’s annual Coastival arts festival.

Sol8, which is so named for the eight minutes it takes for light to travel from the sun to the earth, will feature a camera obscura, photography of the geology of Scarborough printed using a Victorian technique and an eight-minute sketch challenge.

Created by photographers Tony Bartholomew and David Chalmers, along with geologist Will Watts, it can be seen in the gallery at Woodend, on Scarborough’s Crescent, this month.

Camera obscura is the name for a very simple optical device which can be a box, or even a room, in which a beam of light passing through a hole produces a projected and inverted image onto a wall or a piece of paper.

Artists from Da Vinci, who used the technique to study perspective, to the Dutch masters, notably Vermeer, made use of pinhole camera techniques to produce their work.

It is also thought that John Atkinson Grimshaw, who was interested in photography, may have used a camera obscura to project outlines onto canvas of local scenes in Scarborough.

A simple camera obscura has been installed in the Gallery at Woodend, projecting an image of the skyline of The Valley outside onto the white wall of the gallery.

Tony said: “How clear the image is will depend on the light. Visitors need to allow a few minutes to let their eyes adjust to the necessary low lighting levels: the intensity and clarity of the projection will then depend on the time of day, and the amount of sunlight entering the room.

“They’ll also be able to see the occasional bird fly past – and all upside down. The image produced is upside down as light rays cross when passing through the pinhole; this can be corrected by using mirrors or prisms, but we’ve chosen to keep it in its most basic form.

“In these days of instant digital imaging we thought it would be great fun to take us back to the very early days of creating and recording an image.”

Also on display are images of the sandstone strata of the South Bay by David Chalmers, printed on Indian rag paper using a salt printing technique.

David said: “The paper has been soaked in sea salt from the North Sea and then sensitised to light with a coating of silver nitrate. Seven 8x10 inch negatives were placed in contact with the rag paper and sunlight exposed through the negatives to produce this delicate photograph. The image is an almost life-sized reproduction of a cross-section of sandstone and charcoal sediment that was deposited some 160 million years ago.

“This year’s Coastival is entitled ‘Back in Time…’ so it seemed fitting to explore a pioneering 19th century process to capture the light that fell upon this rock face after travelling 93 million miles from the Sun in just eight minutes.”

Visitors to Sol8 will also be invited to take up the eight-minute sketch challenge.

Will said: “While many of the numbers associated with geological time, the size of our universe and the speed of light are enormous, the simple idea that a photon of light leaves the sun and just eight minutes later reaches our planet is much easier to comprehend. The challenge is simple, turn over a sand timer as a photon of light leaves the Sun and you have eight minutes to complete your sketch before that photon hits your paper.”

“The subject of your sketch is up to you – perhaps you have been inspired by the camera obscura view out of the windows in front of you, or by the geology in the salt print. When you have finished we will add your sketch to the wall to build up a series of eight-minute snapshots as recorded by visitors.”

Sol8 can be seen at the Gallery at Woodend this month, 9am to 5pm Mondays to Fridays, and 10am to 4pm Saturdays. Visit sol-8.co.uk