3rd project

The materials: a box, aluminum foil, tape, scissors or a cutter, a needle, sand paper or greaseproof paper (whichever is thinner), black paint, some brushes and glue.
1. If your box is not all black, the first thing you need to do is paint it. That way it won’t be bright attracting darkness, which helps later on making it easier to see the photo. You only need to paint the insides of the box to be all black however, you are free to paint the exterior part too.
2. Cut two holes, one in each sides of the box (the ones that are further away). I recommend a cutter because it makes the job easier but scissors will work. Make one bigger than the other.
3. If you want to make cleaner edges, you can put tape around them. It will help so that nothing is in the way of light.
4. In the bigger hole you need to glue the greaseproof paper and in the smaller one the aluminum foil.
5. In the aluminum foil, with the needle or with something little and pointy, do a little hole. Through it the light will light up the box. Try and make in the middle of the hole so the photo is more centered.
6. You are finish now you just to me in a dark place and focus and what you see inside the box.

Way before the first camera obscura was invented, the phenomenon that lead to its invention was already being talked about. The optical principle with which light travels in a straight line and some light rays are reflected in an object, go through a little hole joining one another creating a picture. Basically what a camera obscura does, was known by Aristóteles. Later, Leonardo Da Vinci, described an image created by this method. How on a sunny day, light enters his room creating and inverted image. Then, Giovanni Battista della Porta and Mo-Ti, started talking about the concept of a camera obscura and its description, they even draw one. All this happened during renaissance and the Quattrocento when the camera obscura was first used. Johannes Kepler, finished talking about the concept of the camera obscura and started its evolution. After the idea was out there, Robert Hooke and others, started building ones. The room was not the only place to see a picture, the camera started to be mobile, carried places. At this point, everyone wanted and used one, even painters that draw what they were able to see with the camera. Thank to Joseph-Nicephore Niepce, photography was born. The image was permanent and the camera obscura was fully developed.

Yes, the camera obscura has been modified since the first one was ever created. One example is Leonardo Da Vinci. He improved it by adding a vertical bar with a hole. That let the painter or whomever was looking through it, to set their point of view making it easier to draw. They focused on one point of the picture thanks to this invention, which led to improved and more concrete drawings of photos or people.
Another way to upgrade this tool painters used a lot, was a 45 degrees mirror. It makes the camera obscura a lot more comfortable to use and it gets the camera to become a quotidian tool for painters as I already said.
Also, by making it smaller, you are letting people carrying it on them every day. Which may not improve its use but it improves the access people have to it. This improvement caused the invention of future cameras as we now them today.

CAN WE MAKE IT BETTER?

Double- check the insides of the box so that they are all black. If they are not, you will not be able to see anything. Darkness is a really important thing in this process. That is why, your surroundings should be dark too. Make sure all the lights are turned off, the windows closed… you just need a small ray of light. It can be a lighter, natural light coming from a window, a flashlight whatever you have around you. It should be a small portion of light so that it lights enough the box to see the photo. After you have the light, you put it right in front of the aluminum foil. The light will go through the little hole you made in the foil lighting up the interior of box. Now, all you have to do is look through the sand paper (not too close, you need to be at a reasonable distance to be able to see something). If you want to look at a photo, put it inside the box but you can also observe anything around you. If you want to have a clearer image, put something around you, a jacket, jumper… so it is darker around the box so whatever you are looking at, is not blurred at all. And that it is, remember that the image you are seeing it is not the real image. It’s a reflection that is why it should be upside down.