On the morning he set out to build the camera tent, dressed in bluejeans, a T-shirt, and work boots and gloves, the artist pulled out a copy of Cole’s sketch for the 1826 painting “Falls of the Kaaterskill,” held it up to the scenic vista before us, and nodded. “Same,” he smiled. Scattered on the ground were bundles of aluminum poles, room-darkening fabric, giant clips, and other supplies — including plastic waterproofing and caution tape to ward off curious hikers — that he’d hauled down an old rail trail and into the woods with the help of his wife, Wenling Zhao.

Mr. Shi has been traveling the world for more than 15 years transforming large spaces — box trucks, hotel rooms, weather stations, and even a watchtower at the Great Wall of China — into large pinhole cameras. The optical device works by allowing light to enter through a hole and project a reverse and inverse image onto photographic paper hung in the back of the darkened vessel — no lens or shutter required. That image also becomes negative, with light and dark areas reversed, when the photographic paper is exposed to the light.

Camera obscuras have been around long before photographic processes were invented. The first known mention is in the 5th century B.C. by the Chinese philosopher Mozi. Aristotle used one to observe the moon eclipsing the sun, while during the Renaissance, Leonardo da Vinci studied optics and perspective with the help of the device. And to the disbelief of many, the contemporary British artist David Hockney has argued that painters from Van Eyck and Vermeer to Caravaggio and Ingres used camera obscuras to trace their imagery.

Cole, too, had a camera obscura. But Mr. Shi was using one long before he learned of the Hudson River painter.