Camera obscura

As the first post of Nosara Daily Photo blog, I wanted to go back in the history of photography a little bit. This is a camera obscura image. The camera obscura is the phrase for darkened room in Latin. It is essentially an optical trick/device that projects an image of its surroundings on a screen and was one of the inventions that planted the seeds of today's photography and cameras.

The room is my office. I basically covered all the windows with black trash bags and closed any doorsills that let the outside light leak in. After fully darkening the room I put a hole on one of the black bags to let some light in. This hole basically acts like the aperture rings in today's cameras. After the image outside of my window formed upside down on the opposite wall, I made a picture of this scene. This is the resultant photograph. It is sort of image of an image.

I had to use the bulb setting of my camera to make this photograph. At about 60 seconds of exposure time, i got the best result.

I have been wanting to give this technique for a long time. It is a lengthy process and needs to be done right. But when you finally start to see the world outside of your window being relfected and essentially happening on your wall, it is a priceless experience.

You can see the first recorded photograph in the history by using this tecnique here. The image was called View from the Window at Le Gra. It was made by the French inventor Nicéphore Niépce.  

Thanks for looking!