Education

Today, young people navigate a world saturated with images. They snap, swipe, and share photographs without ever needing to think about how a picture becomes a picture. This workshop opens that black box — literally — by introducing students to an almost forgotten chapter of photographic history: the street box photographers, also known as Lambe-Lambes, Minuteros, or in Norway: Kanonfotografer!

These itinerant street photographers worked in public squares from the early 1900s, offering fast and affordable portraits with cameras that contained a built-in darkroom. Their customers were often people who never set foot in a formal studio. The pictures they produced may have been quick and inexpensive, but today they stand as powerful records of everyday lives and local histories.

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What students will experience

The workshop begins with the short film, Et glemt øyeblikk i tid (approx. 10 min), based on my ongoing research into the practice. The film brings forward the voices of former street photographers and their costumers, revealing how they worked, who they photographed, and how they were viewed by society.

Trailer:

From there, the classroom turns into a street corner from 1900.

I set up my own hand-built kanoncamera, the Lambe-Lab 1 — made from an antique sewing machine box and a lens from the same era — and I create a class portrait from start to finish:

– The photograph is taken on a film negative
– The negative is developed inside the camera
– A positive print is produced on light-sensitive paper, inside the same camera.
– Everything happens in real time, by hand, under red darkroom light

Students are able to look into the camera and follow the entire development process through a small live camera mounted above it. The school keeps both the negative and the positive, and the final print can be digitized so every student can have a copy.

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Optional extended workshop

For groups that want a deeper, hands-on experience, the project can be expanded into a 3-hour session in which students:

– Construct their own cardboard street box camera
– Mix simple developing solutions made from coffee and salt-based fixer
– Make their own photographs using the camera they have built and can be kept in the school for further use.

This version gives students direct ownership of the process and tools as well it encourages curiosity, experimentation, and playful learning.

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What students gain

✓ A tangible understanding of how analog photography works
✓ A sense of photography as craft, memory, and cultural heritage
✓ Knowledge of visual storytelling before the digital era
✓ A more critical eye toward image manipulation and media
✓ An embodied learning experience beyond screens and apps

Analog photography becomes a space for reflection — about time, technology, identity, and the stories that pictures carry forward.

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Format & Practical Details

For: Schools, museums, cultural institutions, art centers
Recommended age: 9+ (adaptable to younger/older groups)
Language: Norwegian
Core structure: Film screening + live demonstration + darkroom process
Add-on: Extended build-your-own-camera session