Who is the practitioner and when were they practicing?
The photographer is Cuban born and American based Yale graduate Abelardo Morell

With the photo you are examining, when was it produced?

The picture, produced in 1991, is titled ‘Camera Obscura: Houses Across the Street in our Bedroom, Quincy, Massachusetts’, and is a part of a long running project of Morell, in which he creates camera obscuras in hotel rooms around the world.

 

How was the photo authored

I was unable to find out which camera he used, but it was an 8 hour exposure with a film camera. This was achieved by blacking out all sources of light in the room, then creating a pinhole opening in the black sheeting covering the windows. After the long exposure, the result is a reversed projection of the world outside. Morell would later implement a lens in later works, allowing for sharper image and for the projection to be right side up.

How was the photo published

The photo was held onto by Abelardo Morell until its allowance to be used in the publication of the novella ‘Unsleeping’ by Michael Burkard, in 2001.

How was the photo distributed?

The photo was distributed by Sarabande Books with Michael Bukard’s ‘Unsleeping’, though the image is still owned by Morell, and is showcased as a part of his ongoing works and is available on his website http://www.abelardomorell.net/project/camera-obscura/ today.

Morell’s work has helped bring perhaps the oldest known form of image projection and photography to the fore. Not only has he perpetuated the artistic front for photography, but also morphed the photomediations of the time, being ahead of its time and more akin to photography of today. This was done via not merely capturing an image to record data, but to encapsulate feeling in time and place in association to a location.

http://www.openhumanitiespress.org/books/titles/photomediations/