This video presents “The Camera Obscura at The Photographers’ Gallery.”
- “Janice McLaren, Head of Education at the Photographers’ Gallery talks about our camera obscura.”
Looking through the lens and turret of the camera obscura
© The Photographers’ Gallery
The Photographers’ Gallery
Presents
Camera Obscura
FREE ADMISSION
Currently open most Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, 11.00 – 13.00.
The camera obscura will be closed on Friday 20 June, and Friday 27 June to Sunday 29 June.
Eranda Studio, 3rd Floor
The Photographers’ Gallery
16 – 18 Ramillies Street, London W1F 7LW, UK
Phone: +44 (0)20 7087 9300
Email: info@tpg.org.uk
“Camera obscura” is a latin phrase which translates to darkened room or chamber (Latin; camera for “vaulted chamber/room”, obscura for “dark”). By today’s definition, camera obscura is a darkened box with a convex lens or aperture for projecting the image of an external object onto a screen inside.
- It is also known as a pinhole camera.
It is important historically in the development of photography and camera.
- “Camera obscura is created when a small hole or aperture is made
in a darkened space, producing an inverted image of the scene outside onto an opposite surface within.”
- The Photographers’ Gallery’s camera obscura uses a lens to increase the brightness and sharpness of the image.
- Camera obscuras have been used:
- to prove that light travels in straight lines,
- as an aid to drawing and,
- a popular form of entertainment, particularly during the Victorian era.
There are many camera obscuras located throughout the world including:
- Greenwich, UK
- Aberystwyth, UK
- The largest camera obscura in the world is on Constitution Hill in Aberystwyth.
- Bristol, UK
- Edinburgh, UK
- Eger, Hungary
- Santa Monica, USA
- Havana, Cuba
- Johannesburg, South Africa
- London, UK.
- The Photographers’ Gallery’s camera obscura was developed in collaboration with Tony Willett and Dom Patteson from Amazing Camera Obscura.
- The gallery’s lens is a custom made triplet lens which is “affording a 360 degree vertical ‘slice’ along Ramillies Street up to the sky and back again.
Please click here for more info.
