The Public Domain Review: Centuries before photography froze the world into neat frames, scientists, poets, and artists streamed transient images into dark interior spaces with the help of a camera obscura. Julie Park explores the early modern fascination with this quasi-spiritual technology and the magic, melancholy, and dream-like experiences it produced.
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I found this article fascinating because it connects the history of the camera obscura not only to scientific progress but also to philosophy, art, and even spirituality. I’ve never been particularly interested in photography, and I didn’t know about the camera obscura, but this piece makes clear how much cultural and imaginative significance it held in earlier centuries. I especially appreciated the way the article highlights its dual nature as both a scientific instrument for studying light and a space of wonder where viewers could experience reality transformed into something dreamlike. The examples of Pope’s grotto and Walpole’s enthusiasm helped me imagine how ordinary people might have enjoyed and delighted in its images before they disappeared. I was also surprised by the idea that darkness was not only a backdrop but an essential condition for perceiving light in new ways. This article sparked a new interest in photography for me.
I remember learning about the camera obscura in my art history class. I think what's really fascinating about this is that it's, in a way, very similar to modern day VMD and how it looks and functions. At the time, however it was a game changer for realism drawings and allowed us to make a lot of major improvements and how the way we saw the world reflected the way that we transcribed it on page, because it really helps you disassociate what your mind thinks you're seeing, from the lines and shapes that are actually present in the space around you, especially having it be upside down like that, is a really great way to disassociate your mind from creating what you think you should see, and just drawing what is physically there, without any of the mental hangups that tend to be present. I've actually used this technique in my own way, as sometimes when I'm drawing from reference and I know the line isn't coming out the way I wanted to, the best way to do it is if you're drawing from reference from a photograph, to turn the photograph upside down, because then you don't have those same mental hang-ups that are causing you to see one thing but draw another because your brain is convinced that your eyes are wrong. all you have to go off of is that one line, which makes things a lot simpler.
I’ve read about camera obscura before, but I’ve never understood it until reading this article. Even after reading it, it still doesn’t quite make sense in my head. Intuitively, I want to think that there would be no image projected but rather a blob of sunlight. It’s really interesting to read about how it evolved over time and even just how early in human history that it was discovered. It really followed a path that’s rather similar to how most modern technology has developed; for example, the computer started as a machine that was as big as a room, but over time it became more compact and portable. I wish the article touched on how camera obscura affected the development of modern projectors and cameras, if it did at all. There’s a lot of technology that we use today that we take for granted, considering we have it pretty nice with modern projectors.
To be honest I believe we need to bring these back. I wish there was more information on who discovered these. How did they even manage that? Also, what exactly did artists use it for? From my understanding it could show them only one image: the image that happened to be right outside the camera obscura. Or maybe they would put things in front of the light hole? Why wouldn’t just looking at the objects suffice? Regardless, it's still cool. The portable ones are my favorite part of this article. It’s awesome to get to know who discovered it and more information on how they were actually used. I feel like this would be just as cool to make now as it was then. It amazes me how people were able to figure out such complex things so early on, and to actually be able to see what they did in the modern day would inspire me to create and figure things out and do more.
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