Camera obscura, also referred to as pinhole image, is the natural optical phenomenon that occurs when an image of a scene at the other side of a screen is projected through a small hole in that screen as a reversed and inverted image on a surface opposite to the opening. The latin meaning of camera obscura is dark chamber. It is named this most likely because light was admitted into small darkened rooms.
On the opposite wall the light reflects the image through a pin sized hole. This image is inverted and laterally transposed. The size of the hole has a large effect on the picture that is being projected. A small hole will produce a sharp image that is dimmer/ darker while a larger hole will produce a less focused image that is brighter.
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These are my own images of a camera obscura. My class and I travelled around our college to find rooms to create camera obserca images. We chose a store room to the side of the lidl supermarket building. To create the camera obscura photo we taped tin foil to the window then cut out a pin sized hole of tin foil in the bottom section near the bottom edge of the window. We were able to sit and wait for the image to come through. The light projected the image of the building onto the wall of the store room we were in. Then using a camera we took photos of the image projected onto the wall. |
The earliest known written account of a camera obscura was provided by a Chinese philosopher called Mo-tzu (or Mozi) in 400BC. He noted that light from an illuminated object that passed through a pinhole into a dark room created an inverted image of the original object.
The artist I have chosen to look at is Abelardo Morell. He made his first picture using camera obscura techniques in a darkened living room in 1991. In setting up a room to make this kind of photograph, all windows were covered with black plastic in order to achieve total darkness. Then, small hole is cut in the material that was use to cover the windows. This opening allows an inverted image of the view outside to flood onto the back walls of the room. Typically then Morell focused his large-format camera on the incoming image on the wall then make a camera exposure on film. In the beginning, exposures took from five to ten hours. Over time, this project has taken Morell from his living room to all sorts of interiors around the world. Several years ago, in order to push the visual potential of this process, Morell started to use colour film and positioned a lens over the hole in the window plastic in order to add to the overall sharpness and brightness of the incoming image. Now, often a prism is used to make the projection come in right side up. Morell has also shortened the exposures considerably thanks to digital technology, which in turn makes it possible to capture more momentary light.