The Camera Obscura essay
February 22, 2021
AH-331-01 -- History of Photography
The Camera Obscura
I was always a bit skeptical of the camera obscura and how it works. I never truly understood how an image could be projected onto a wall, flipped upside down, and still maintain the color from outside. When I tried it, my initial results were not good enough. I tried a few methods to achieve a clearer image and some of them worked. Overall, I was impressed by the meaning behind it. It was interesting to visualize truly how far we have come with camera technology and producing images, and really seeing for myself, the evolution of photography.
The way a camera obscura works is exactly like an old film camera, except on a larger, more tangible scale. For my experiment, it must contain a room with only one entry point for light to pass through. In order to achieve this, one must completely black out the room with tape and poster board, especially in broad daylight. Light from outside then passes through the pinhole and strikes the nearest surface, projecting an image from the scene outside. Typically, the surface should be covered in a white sheet or paper for the best clarity. In my case, I had a white blanket taped over my door. I began with a black poster board that was roughly the size of my bathroom window and made sure the view outside was decent enough to make for a good photograph. It was a bit tricky to seal off all of the light completely because I was afraid of ripping the paint off the walls with the duct tape. After a bit of trial and error, I found a way to stick the tape on the walls without damaging the paint. I had to stuff blankets under the door to block of the bottom light and once that was resolved, I was able to tape up the creases around the frame to block off any escaping light. Throughout this process, I realized that the room needs to be completely pitch black in order for the image to show. Once I got that taken care of, I was able to see an image on my wall, but it wasn’t clear enough. I figured maybe adjusting the pinhole size would make a difference in the clarity of the image, as does the aperture within a standard camera. At first, my pinhole was roughly four inches in diameter and proved to be too big. Finally, I was able to make a smaller hole with the extra tape I had lying around. After the second trial, I noticed the image on the door began to focus. Once my eyes adjusted, I could see a much sharper, clearer image. Although still a bit blurry, I was impressed by what I could see because it was easy to recognize as I see this view several times each day. As it may be hard for the human eye alone to see the image, I took a 15 second exposure of what I saw, and the results were far better than what my eye could see. I shot the image at ISO 640 @ 15 seconds @ f/6.3 and was happy with the results. I noticed more color and detail than the previous 10 second exposure I had taken which gave me a better understanding on how exposure length and aperture width can play a large part in the quality of an image.
I was most impressed with the detail and its ability to project the image with accurate colors. I did not expect to see blue and yellow hues coming from the sky and the walls of the house. I was pretty excited to see the individual branches and green leaves stemming from the tree in the neighbor’s backyard. If I were to conduct this experiment again, I would definitely want a canvas that I could move back and forth to achieve the composition and clarity that I desired. In the future, I would be curious to try tracing the image on the canvas to see how clear it really is. Overall, I’m grateful to have chosen this experiment because it gave me a better understanding of photography’s evolution. As a visual learner, there is no better way to fully comprehend the concept of image making, than physically creating it yourself. The camera obscura made for a perfect hands-on lesson of the history of photography.
When deciphering science from art, a lot is brought to the table. The foundation of any medium of art consists of revolutionary discoveries involving the combination of tools, ideas, chemicals, or substances with hopes of achieving something brilliant. It is not until those ingredients of such an experiment come together and bring forth art, when we see it as something to cherish. I believe the camera obscura was the start of something brand new that led to several scientific discoveries, evidently creating the art medium of photography – something that we as humans appreciate and frankly take for granted in this life. Recognizing it as an art form rather than a science is important as it holds far more of a significance in what we are made of as human beings. The human eye is drawn to many sounds, visuals, and other art forms. When looking at photography, we see a combination of appealing compositions, colors, and ranges of light that strike our eyes as beautiful. Like any other creative medium, photography is and shall always be valued as an art form rather than a scientific discovery in result of the camera obscura.