Last week I headed off to Menorca for a week in the sun with my family. Amongst all the eating, drinking and sunbathing I was doing, a rather unexpected occurrence presented itself. Sleepy eyed I awoke one morning, in my dark room thanks to the outside shutters, when I noticed something moving across the opposite wall to the window. I wondered whether I was still dreaming but upon further inspection, no, that was definitely a figure moving across my bedroom wall. Thanks to my photography background, and pessimism when it comes to the paranormal, I knew immediately what it was. A camera obscura.
A camera obscura is a darkened enclosure with a small opening that projects an image of the outside world onto a surface inside. It’s a natural phenomenon and the precursor to the modern photographic camera.
I noticed a very small gap between one of the shutters on my window which must have been acting as the small opening or ‘lens’ to the camera obscura and the white walls of my bedroom provided the perfect screen, which would otherwise be the sensor in a camera.
I realised what I was seeing was my brother (much to my distaste) pottering around outside by the pool. As my eyes adjusted, and I realised the image was inverted and flipped, more and more detail became apparent – the beautiful pink bougainvillea flowers dripping from the pergola, the corner of the pool with inflatables floating in and out of view, the brickwork of the villa and the blue Menorcan sky stretching across the wall – I couldn’t believe how vivid the colours were. As I sat and marvelled at the real time projection I was seeing, I was reminded of why photography fascinated me in the first place and the intriguing science behind it. I’ve included below some images of the outside of my room alongside an admittedly terrible (apologies I was excited, only had my phone on me and it was very dark) image of the projection, inverted and flipped, in the hope I can convey some of the magic I felt that morning.
