A Crushing Defeat

I was planning on showing off the results of a long-term art project today, but when I went to retrieve them I found that 3 of my homemade pinhole cameras were stolen by curious beachcombers, and one had been crushed by a philistine.

I tried to salvage the crushed one, but the coupling of a slightly less than optimal location light-wise and its disfigurement led to the exposure looking more like an indistinct blob than anything even remotely recognizable.  On the other hand, I've learned a few useful lessons from this experiment that will be useful in construction and placement of future pinhole cameras.

1. Photo paper, despite all warnings, is remarkably resistant to water.  It seems that moist Seattle air got in and made everything quite damp.
2. It is advisable to paint the shiny, curved bottom of the beer can black, or at least to electrical tape over it.  The amount of light coming from the internal reflection is impressive.
3. People are amazingly observant and curious, and are willing take garbage that appears out of place and even to reach behind vicious thorn-bushes for the chance to steal your homemade cameras.  If they find themselves unable to actually steal it, they will simply crush it.  Hopefully this issue will not pose such a problem for six cameras that I have placed in an area that is completely off limits for half the year, and five in a place that I hope is sufficiently remote and unpleasant that nobody would ever want to go there.  Unfortunately, it'll be 3 to 6 months before I can check on that hypothesis!