Capturing Light, The Origins of Photography, / Part 1 Beginnings of Imagery /

Capturing Light

the

Origins of Photography

/ Part 1 / Beginnings of Imagery / 

   From the earliest times, people all over the earth have made images, of themselves and their surroundings. First with the natural elements they had. Rudimentary petroglyphs, and pictographs are the first known depictions created. As societies, and cultures became more advanced, the images that 

were created were also more sophisticated and detailed. Images later began to appear on decorative and utilitarian objects, pottery, jewelry, tools,weapons, sculpture, and architecture. These types of imagery, and more, continued to be made in a contemporary style, unique in their perspective to each of the civilizations that created them, and have endured in various forms  into the present day.A natural phenomenon was observed in a early culture of the far east. The first written reference to it was by a  Oriental scholar and philosopher Mozi, in the 4th century B.C. He noticed that when sunlight, reflecting off of an object, was reflected onto a screen with a small hole in the center, the light will penetrate through the hole, and project an exact image onto a screen placed behind the first. Although this was unique and interesting, there was no practical use, and was only a curiosity to those who knew of it. Much later it would become known as " Camera Obscura " and was the foundation of all the future developments of what would eventually become photography, and motion pictures.

   Leonardo deVinci, in 1502 writings described the light effect 

" If the facade of a building, or a place, or a landscape is illuminated by the sun and a small hole is drilled in the wall of a room in a building facing this, which is not directly lighted by the sun, then all objects illuminated by the sun will send their images through this aperture and will appear, upside down, on the wall facing the hole. You will catch these pictures on a piece of white paper, which placed vertically in the room not far from that opening, and you will see all the above-mentioned objects on this paper in their natural shapes or colors, but they will appear smaller and upside down, on account of crossing of the rays at that aperture. If these pictures originate from a place which is illuminated by the sun, they will appear colored on the paper exactly as they are. The paper should be very thin and must be viewed from the back."

   The oldest known drawing of a device, ( camera obscura ),was by Dutch physician, Gemma Frisius, when he had written how to build a structure to create the light effect to observe an eclipse of the sun, that occurred in  January 24, 1544. The earliest use of the actual term " Camera Obscura ", was first written in 1604, by mathematician and astronomer  Johannes Kepler.

 He used a device with a telescope within a tent to draw landscapes from the images projected onto a screen.