Focus on Photography, Art History, the Camera Obscura

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Focus on Photography, Art History, the Camera Obscura

Art History The Camera Obscura One of the most interesting facts about photography is that cameras and lenses were invented hundreds of years before photography itself was invented. The first cameras were called camera obscuras. They were designed around the phenomenon of pinholes, which can project upside down and backward images onto a surface. Because light travels in a straight line, when light rays are reflected from a subject or scene through a small hole in thin material, they cross and reform on another surface as an upside-down projected image. This law of optics was known to Chinese scholars as long ago as the Fig. 1–11. Look at the path of the light through the camera obscura and the fifth century BCE. Teaching Tip position of the mirror. How do they An easy camera obscura can These first cameras were used as combine to project an image? be constructed from a soda drawing aids for Western artists in George Eastman House, An Early Nineteenth-Century can. Open the can, drain the the sixteenth century. The image Portable Camera Obscura. contents, wash, and let dry. that an artist wanted to recreate With a small nail, make a small hole in the bottom of was projected onto canvas or paper pinholes in camera obscuras, produc- the can. Cover the opening and the artist could then trace it, ing sharper and brighter images. on the top of the can with achieving great realism and accurate Mirrors were placed in the camera frosted transparent tape. perspective. obscura to project the upside-down Hold the can up to a bright setting and look at the taped Eventually, lenses from telescopes image right side up onto a ground area to see the upside- were modified and adapted in the glass, similar to the workings of down, reversed image pro- early seventeenth century to replace today’s cameras. jected from the pinhole. Vocabulary camera obscura Latin for “dark room.” This was the first camera and was used as a drawing aid for artists. An image was projected onto a ground glass and then traced by the artist. Fig. 1–12. Image of the ground glass viewing screen in a camera obscura. What Is Photography? 9 FOP_TE_002-029_ch1_160811_tkb.indd 9 8/12/16 9:25 PM.

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Gallery Text That Accompanies This Exhibition In
Steeped in the classical training of an English gentleman, Edward Dodwell (1777/78– 1832) first traveled through Greece in 1801. He returned in 1805 in the company of an Italian artist, Simone Pomardi (1757–1830), and together they toured the country for fourteen months, drawing and documenting the landscape with exacting detail. They produced around a thousand illustrations, most of which are now in the collection of the Packard Humanities Institute in Los Altos, California. A selection from this rich archive is presented here for the first time in the United States. Dodwell and Pomardi frequently used a camera obscura, an optical device that made it easier to create accurate images. Beyond providing evidence for the appearance of monuments and vistas, their illustrations manifest the ideal of the picturesque that enraptured so many European travelers. The sight of ancient temples lying in ruin, or of the Greek people under Turkish rule as part of the Ottoman Empire, prompted meditation on the transience of human accomplishments. As Dodwell himself wrote: “When we contemplated the scene around us, and beheld the sites of ruined states, and kingdoms, and cities, which were once elevated to a high pitch of prosperity and renown, but which have now vanished like a dream . we could not but forcibly feel that nations perish as well as individuals.” Dodwell’s own words accompany the majority of images in this exhibition. His descriptions are drawn from his Classical and Topographical Tour through Greece, during the Years 1801, 1805, and 1806 (London, 1819). The author’s original spelling, capitalization, and punctuation have been retained.
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TING FILM #Sr'*"
,tvæ.. 2) þ tNv TING FILM :*. rr gTn'nx..n¡lj¿.,¡E¡.q¿O*fn- _ I q ¡{ IES and' rrrNlo ) rryt TTTE l{ES ßr*+pa6ç g** f*¿ ê f*F" LEE GRIEVESON IA}ü C]NEMA ;/sts¡r of l..onte.ge) tin, I'levsky :V.- a N'.ESTERIV EPIO $þ¡rered Ì'/agorirl L-*o ê'.-{, tdeE& EDITORS ffi nerolrTEsT snotroN EARTII¡I SCCIAIJ c fr *.€ hlftn.s,+tr -q i'. fl Fng* þeu *J¡ F"*-* s 6Ê\ êrt k-q #sr'*" ,¡1rnn' r+o4'++++ $ É44 €5er f É."ff ddt¿" fråÊ iB* #.s äd''+* ITTTTITT¡T¡TTTITIIITITTTT¡IIIT editons I f t f I I t I llttlrrrlrt¡IltrlrI LeeGrievesonand HaideeWasson, INVENTING FILM STUDIES Duke Universiþl Pr€ss I Durham and London I zooS Feminist Looks' caaerø obscura issues z, zo-zt, and,54 display the consistency and range of the journal's i¡terest feminism, in media culture, and imagining the va¡ious ways that women loolc camera obscura l,\û\ tl lr t.n\i!ü ¿il¡ | ¡h littù],t) camera obscura ^ , t èl r, lonhl 'ùil il ùtl tìh, 11Ì,qrl 4. ¿t (Re)Inventin g C amer a Ob s cura AMELIE HASTIE, LYNNE JOYRICH' PATRICIA WHlTE, AND SHARON WILLIS lÈ A man of about thirty strikes us as a youthful, somewhat unformed individual. ' . \ woman of the same age, however, often frightens us by her psychical rigidity and changeability. It ís as though, indeed, the difficult development to femininity exhausted tlie possibilities of the person concerned - Sigmund Freud, "FemininitY" The change seemed to have been accomplished painlessly and completely and in s Camera Obscura ísste z: Hitchcock's that Marnie and, feminist production looms a way that Orlando herself showed no surprise at it.
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Camera Obscura at Thirty: Archiving the Past, Imagining the Future
Downloaded from http://read.dukeupress.edu/camera-obscura/article-pdf/21/1 (61)/1/400761/CO61_01_Intro.pdf by guest on 25 September 2021 ARCHIVE FOR THE FUTURE Camera Obscura at Thirty: Archiving the Past, Imagining the Future A man of about thirty strikes us as a youthful, somewhat unformed individual. A woman of the same age, however, often frightens us by her psychical rigidity and unchangeability. It is as though, indeed, the difﬁcult development to femininity had exhausted the possibilities of the person concerned. — Sigmund Freud, “Femininity” The change seemed to have been accomplished painlessly and completely and in such a way that Orlando herself showed no surprise at it. Many people . hold . that such a change of sex is against nature. It is enough for us to state the simple fact; Orlando was a man till the age of thirty; when he became a woman and has remained so ever since. — Virginia Woolf, Orlando Camera Obscura turns thirty in 2006. The editors eschewed, or neglected, marking twenty-ﬁve, a somewhat unformed age, in favor of the celebration of a moment of remarkable potential — perhaps radical changeability, as Woolf, if not Freud, would have it. To celebrate the journal’s birthday — it is, after all, an independent Camera Obscura 61, Volume 21, Number 1 doi 10.1215/02705346-2005-001 © 2006 by Camera Obscura Published by Duke University Press 1 Downloaded from http://read.dukeupress.edu/camera-obscura/article-pdf/21/1 (61)/1/400761/CO61_01_Intro.pdf by guest on 25 September 2021 • Camera Obscura entity of sorts and deserves a party, and one which is as inclu- sive as possible (unlike most anniversary celebrations, even sil- ver ones) — we have begun to collect short writings that we have called an archive for the future of “feminism, culture, and media.” A number of these contributions are included in this issue, and they will continue to run throughout the three issues published during the anniversary year.
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Inside the Camera Obscura – Optics and Art Under the Spell of the Projected Image
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