These Photographers Make Cameras From the Landscapes Around Them

Shutterbugs Adam Donnelly and David Janesko take the term “landscape photography” to new levels. The duo travels around the San Francisco Bay Area, snapping shots of creeks, forests, and mountains. The twist? They photograph these scenes using cameras they’ve built on site from the region’s natural materials. These works are the subject of a collaborative art project between Donnelly and Janesko that's called Site Specific Cameras, according to PetaPixel.

The artists fashion camera bodies from rocks, wood, grass, leaf litter, mud, and other earthy substances. Lenses are crafted from leaves, shells, bones, rocks, or pieces of wood—all with pre-existing holes. Any tools used to build the camera must also be fashioned on location. Once Donnelly and Janesko are ready to shoot a scene, they crawl into the cavernous “cameras" and manually open and close the lenses.

Donnelly and Janesko have photographed the Bay Area’s redwood forest, oak woodlands, rocky and sandy beaches, and grasslands since 2012. Recently, the two launched an Indigogo campaign to take their unique approach to landscape photography on the road. They hope to crowdfund enough to pay for car trips to specific locations across America and hire a small documentary film crew to make a film about their artistic process. This spring, Donnelly and Janesko want to reach the Southwest and build cameras along the Rio Grande River in Texas, New Mexico, and southern Colorado.

To learn more about Site Specific Cameras, watch the video above, or check out some pictures of Donnelly and Janesko's handmade cameras and the resulting works.

Pescadero Creek, landscape camera

Pescadero Creek, landscape photo

Alamere Falls, landscape camera

Alamere Falls, landscape photo

Gazo's Creek, landscape camera

Gazo's Creek, landscape photo

[h/t PetaPixel]

All images courtesy of Adam Donnelly.