Make: Volume 91

A camera obscura (“darkened chamber” in

Latin) is a room that has been blacked out, with

a lens or small aperture in the wall being the

only window on the exterior scene. Light rays

from outside pass through the aperture and are

projected onto a white wall inside, casting a direct

image of the view outside, but reversed — upside-

down and back-to-front — onto the wall. We get

our modern word camera (photograph-making

device) from the contraction of this term.

Camera obscuras (walk-in camera rooms)

have been around for centuries. There are

theories that prehistoric cave paintings were

partly inspired by the distorted projected

images of animals ...