So, my university owns a real human skeleton. Actually, I think it might have been donated to them by the individual (I might be remembering incorrectly, though). In either case, the skeleton makes his (we're fairly certain it's male, but some profs argue the point--it's old, so no one really knows/remembers for sure...) home in the art studio. He's kept safe and sound in storage for the most part, but he gets pulled out for drawing and, well, whatever exercise he could lend a bone (or a body) to.
Last term I used him in my drawing class, before we did nude figure drawing, just to get used to the proportions of the human body. Our class initially named him Alfred. Today in photography, we used him to practice taking pictures with 4x5 view cameras and pinhole cameras. Woot! J got us special "Croatian" positive paper (apparently they still use it there in photobooths, like for id photos) that we used instead of negative sheets. This meant that all we had to do was take the photo and develop it in the darkroom like we would a print after exposing it in the enlarger. Near-instant results! (Which is perfect for getting familiar with "new," time-tasking equipment.)
The first two images were taken with a view camera. This last image, however, was taken with a pinhole. Because of the paper, which is eqivalent to 3 ASA, and it being in a pinhole camera, it needed a LOOONG exposure time. Long = an hour and a half! I set up the pinhole camera (just a wooden-box camera) on a stool in front of Alfred and left it for, yes, an hour and a half. Good times. I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out, even though it looks a little creepy. Alfred got moved a few times (different poses, etc), so he looks a little ghostly. And you might notice something about his skull...
And, no, no April Fool's day joke. Sorry. I'm lame. =(
