Ever since our ancestors began painting images on the sides of cave walls we’ve been fascinated with capturing the world around us and putting those images on some sort of media for others to view. It wasn’t until much later in history that Photography was created however everything has a beginning and photography is no different.
To begin with when our predecessors wanted a family or personal portrait they would have to hire a painter to produce the image and then sit for numerous hours as the artist did their work to create their image on canvas.
For a faster process the artist would use an aid that was called the Camera Obscrua, latin for ‘dark room’ where the artist would have a box with a simple lens or pin hole at one end with a mirror inside at a 45* angle to shine the light up onto a glass bed that had one surface ground to make a matte finish for the light coming into the box to be viewed. The artist would then place a thin paper on the glass and would be able to trace the subject’s out line and various features and then be able to colour in the rest of the image with paints.
The Camera Obscrua doesn’t have a date as to when it was first made but what we do know is that it’s attributes were discovered by may philosophers to the likes of Aristotle in the mid 300’s BC who noticed that when light traveled through a small opening it was projected on a surface opposite of the opening. Several Philosophers and scientists also used an open box held upside down with a small hole on on side of the box and would view the projection on the opposite side usually to view a solar eclipse.
Camera Obscrua isn’t limited to just a box like object as in it’s name sake ‘dark room’ whole rooms, shacks, and tents were used where a hole in the side of the room was made and a lens was inserted. A canvas would be placed on the opposite side of the opening for the artist to create their work of art.
It is the Camera Obscrua that began the art of photography, the box projected light opposite of an aperture, all that was needed is some way to capture that light with out having to draw or paint the image. This is where natural philosophers (scientists) came into play in the quest for capturing and fixing the light that came into a camera obscrua.