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MILLIGAN COLLEGE, Tenn. (Nov. 21, 2014) — Photos are a dime-a-dozen these days on social networks like Facebook and Instagram, where users can broadcast their day with the push of a button. However, a Milligan College student wants everyone to slow down for his art exhibit “Camera Obscura: An Exploration in Alternative Processing in Photography.”
“There are roughly 400,000 images uploaded to Facebook in the amount of time that it takes to make one image on this old-fashioned camera,” said senior Will Major, whose work highlights some of the earliest forms of photography.
“Today, we often replace experience with documentation. But photography is supposed to do the opposite: document experience.”
Major will give his art talk at the Milligan Art Gallery in Derthick Hall on Sunday, Nov. 23, from 2-4 p.m. The reception and show are free and open to the public.
While the camera obscura dates back to ancient Greece, the portable version of the camera didn’t 
become popular until the 17th century. The cyanotype prints featured in the show were made from 8-by-10 negatives created entirely with the pinhole camera.
“The pinhole of the camera obscura lets in so little light that it takes up to two minutes to correctly expose the negative in bright daylight,” said Major, whose creative project was required in Milligan’s humanities program. His senior art exhibition will open next year in April.
Ultimately, Major wants his viewers to slow down and see with full attention.
“If we lose this ability to slow down and accurately reveal the truth of the world through the camera lens, then we will be left with empty, meaningless images that say nothing about our world,” said Major.
Major’s exhibit will run from Nov. 23 through Dec. 10.
To learn more about Milligan’s arts events, visit www.milligan.edu/arts.