BEVERLY — Students at Landmark High School know cameras inside and out — with an emphasis on the inside.

Last week they piled into the back of an old minivan, and watched as light filtered through a small hole in the darkness, forming an upside down picture on a white screen. Then they placed photo paper, which serves as film, beneath the image on the screen and left it for about 10 minutes. After that they brought it back to the photo lab darkroom to develop.

Yes, they managed to turn the school's old minivan into a camera.

"Mrs. Healey always says you can make anything into a camera," said Eliza Woodworth, a junior in the beginning photography class. All you need is a lightproof box with a hole in it, and light sensitive paper, or film.

"It's the complete basics," Woodworth said. "It makes even an old film camera seem complex."

Pinhole photography is of the first forms of photography, before the invention of lenses. The concept of having light pass through a small hole and project an upside-down image was mentioned a couple times by ancient Greek philosophers like Aristotle and was used by mathematicians to measure astronomical phenomenons such as the movement of the sun.

In the 17th century, Leonardo DaVinci projected the real-life images onto canvases and painted them. It wasn't until the 1850s that a Scottish scientist named Sir David Brewster took the first picture.

Photography teacher Kara Healey said she wanted her students to really understand the process of taking a picture, and started by making pinhole cameras out of oatmeal cans. Then, she heard the school bought new minivans and was getting rid of the old ones, and thought, hey why not?

The students began by using papier mache to cover the van, and then painted the whole thing black.

"We really wanted to build up a nice, thick blackout," Healey said. They drilled a small hole in the back, and set up the white screen on the other side.

Inside the van, the students used walkie-talkies to command their subjects to move to right, or the left, or to hold their pose, and fought over where to place the photo paper as a picture appeared.

"You're going through the process the camera goes through," said senior Peter Wellman.

It's a unique perspective; the inside of most cameras, however, are not decked out with newspaper-stuffed pillows, purple stage curtains, and a neon green shag rug.

"We had to make it homey," Woodworth said.

Right now, the van is parked outside the Landmark art building, with a flat tire.

"There's a reason we got the van," Healey said.

"Our auto shop helped us out a lot," added Art Department Director Beth Jamieson.

But before the flat, the school drove the van around campus, and down to the ocean, to take a variety of pictures. They'd love to drive it around the city, but because the rear windshield is painted black the van won't pass inspection.

"And it's a little hard to back up," Jamieson said.

But students hope people will come to them to see it. Pingree School in Hamilton has already arranged a field trip, and more schools from the area are welcome.

Now, only one challenge remains.

"We're thinking, how can we outdo this next year," Healey said. "And we're thinking of turning the gym into a camera for a day."