Friday, August 28, 2009

BEFORE THERE WAS PHOTOGRAPHY - THE CAMERA OBSCURA

I'm Larry Elkins (www.elkinsphotos.com). I'll be your guide as we explore the history of photography. I know you've probably heard the riddle about which came first, the chicken or the egg. Well, here's another riddle. Which came first, photography or the camera? The answer is the camera, but not the camera as we know it. The camera obscura, the camera that existed before the invention of photography, was originally a large darkened room, or tent, with a small hole in one wall. As a result of the physical principles of light, an inverted image of the world outside the walls would appear on the wall opposite the one with the hole. This device dates back to at least the Fifth Century A.D. when its use was described by the Chinese philosopher Mo-Ti. The German astromomer Johannes Kepler, in the Seventeenth Century, utilysed a version of the camera obscura as a surveying tool. Eventually the camera obscura evolved into a portable artists' drawing device. The camera obscura was also the ancestor of the modern photographic camera. Thus photography as it exists today owes a debt of gratitude to the tent with a hole in the wall.

Thursday, August 27, 2009

GETTING STARTED

COMING SOON - ARTICLES ON THE HISTORY OF PHOTOGRAPHY