A Canadian film photographer has created an instant camera made from gingerbread – which takes pictures through a lens made of sugar glass.
Dmitri Tcherbadji, who runs the analogue photography website Analog Café, believes his experiments have created the world’s first edible camera and lens. The camera uses Instax Square films
“This is my second gingerbread camera project, following the 2021 Polaroid SX-70 model. This year, I decided to get ambitions and combine what I’ve learned from that experience and also what I’ve learned from building an Instax pinhole camera a few years back,” he told Kosmo Foto.
“Instant film is excellent for experimental stuff as it can provide feedback quickly. I am particularly grateful for JollyLook’s DIY Instax Square development unit that makes this work,” he said.
“I’ve learned that gingerbread projects take a lot of time and planning, but they are enjoyable. Synonymous with winter holidays, they are also a great distraction from the endless screentime and an excuse to collaborate with others during construction or destruction.”
Tcherbadji’s previous experiment had built a gingerbread camera, but that had used a conventional lens.
“Many DIY film and digital cameras use a pinhole to project the image; however, I have wondered if sugar glass could be used to create a lens since I saw light flicker inside my last year’s gingerbread camera.
“My research showed that it could be possible and that the results would be poor. Nevertheless, this was an opportunity to design my own optical system out of candy, which I couldn’t pass by.”
Tcherbadji shared some of the results of the experiment with Kosmo Foto, which you can see below:
Tcherbadji added: “As you can see, the images are very soft, lack contrast, and show lots of other distortions. Still, cranking them out of a piece of bread and sugar never ceases to feel exciting (and a little hilarious).
“There’s certainly room for improvement. I’ve learned a lot building this, and I will be learning more as I attempt to expose a few more packs of film before breaking it into pieces later with friends.”
I'm a New Zealander who has been living in London since the mid-1990s, shooting film seriously since the year 2000. Kosmo Foto was launched in 2012 and has since become a film brand, with the release of my first films Kosmo Foto Mono 35mm (2017) and Kosmo Foto Mono 120 (2019).
I’m doing everything I can to promote film photography in the 21st Century, and help it survive and thrive. If you want to write something for Kosmo Foto, please drop me a line at foto.dowling@gmail.com.
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