Camera Obscur The Ancient Foundation Of Modern Day Photography

The history of the camera spans numerous centuries, but before there was the photographic camera with the ability of developing and preserving images formed by light, there was the camera obscura. The term camera obscura is derived from the Latin words for “dark room,” as this apparatus typically consists of a completely closed space, either a box or a room, with something completely covering the light source. When a hole is put into the surface that is obstructing the light source, the image from the outside world filters through the hole and is displayed, mirrored and upside-down, onto the surface parallel to the hole. Also called a pinhole camera, the camera obscura is the most ancient foundation of modern day photography, with records of

He was a scientist that had a particular interest in optics, among countless other fields, and some of the very first theories having to do with the way the human eye receives and processes light are owed to his writings. He authored a book titled The Book of Optics, where he disproved and adjusted many ancient Greek philosophies, and he is also credited with the invention of the camera obscura. He was the first philosopher to theorize that light traveled in straight lines, and that was why the image formed by the camera obscura was inverted when it filtered through the small, circular pinhole in the wall. Outside of the camera, the light from objects positioned higher up traveled in a straight line, continuing downwards through the pinhole and settling towards the lower half of the surface parallel to the pinhole. The same is true for lower objects, only in reverse. The light from lower objects travels upward toward the hole, through it, and settles in the top half of the