I was surprised and delighted, yet somewhat embarrassed when I realized that the images I was observing inside this life-sized camera were in color – living, moving, breathing color. I was confused. I was sure I had come to this experience without any preconceived notions, yet as my eyes began to adjust to the nearly absent light and images began to materialize on white walls, I realized I had assumed that what I would observe would appear to me in black and white. I was tickled by my naivety.

This was very different than the results of loading my cherished rosewood Zero 2000 2 ¼” pinhole camera with black and white, high speed, fine grain film. Why of course I thought to myself - the world is color… rich in color, and I am alive with preconceptions.

The images appeared as though they were being projected against a hastily strung sheet, once used to convert my back yard to a makeshift drive-in. The shadowy images registered as unfamiliar and otherworldly, and I felt as though I had been transformed to an altered state of consciousness.

The imagery remained vague to me, soft - yet striking in patterns of geometric shapes and vivid colors, with supple edges. The diffused details eluded me, causing mild disconnect. My minds eye conjured an image of being masked and connected to a computer via a series of wires experiencing virtual reality.

As people began to pass outside this darkened space what I surmised as two separate images on adjoining walls seemingly merged forming a continuum of imagery. I imagined hearing the sound of an ancient 16mm projector chugging ahead; I was now watching a wide screen moving picture, upside down of course.

These inverted images transported me back to my childhood, to a time when I would lie on my back, head dangling off a the edge of a chair, feet high in the air - lost deep in imagining what it would be like to scamper across ceilings, leaping over door-jams to move from room to room, or to walk on air and look up to the ground.

Here, I was alone again in my special world where what was up was down what was down was up. As I continued to observe I began to imagine what this experience must have been like for the original observers of this fantastic phenomenon. Imagine - how a little hole knocked into the wall of a darkened room could command the natural world to turn upside down.

Who could have divined the power inherent in this seemingly benign act? It is simply mystical. I wondered if perhaps, during all those hours I spent years ago lying upside down attempting to make sense of a confusing world, what I needed was a dark room with a hole in the wall.

A Room With a View: Inside a Camera Obscura  © Ann Richardson • Apr 23, 2007