Camera Obscura at Fleisher throws new light on photography

At the Center for Works on Paper, images from the outside world project on a panorama of walls, like a moving picture made of reality.

An exhibit titled "Collecting Place: Inside the Camera Obscura at Fleisher Art Memorial" invites visitors into a pitch-dark room. At first, they stumble into two poles and wade over to a bench. But as their eyes adjust after about five minutes in the dark, buildings magically appear and cars zoom by. Three slits by covered windows determine what will become subjects. Life has been inverted: The camera obscura presents an untainted view of how vision is perceived through the retina.

"It's only through the logical, rational mind that you start to identify things by flipping them upside down in your mind, giving things shapes, and coordinating those shapes with concepts," explained Alexandra Orgera, who co-curated the show.

She and Vita Litvak decided to recreate the original camera while talking about how to explain pinhole photography, a smaller version of the camera obscura, to their students at Fleisher. Litvak had set up a similar display at Germantown Friends School when she taught there and remembered how engagement had lent itself to a level of understanding that mere description could not achieve. "Thinking about it, or talking about it, or presenting it in class is very different than experiencing it," she said.

Litvak also instructs a course on the history of photography at Moore College of Art and Design, and she always opens her lectures with an introduction to the camera obscura. Chinese philosopher Mozi first mentioned light streaming through a hole and reflecting on a surface in the 5th century B.C., and Plato's allegory of the cave can be seen as a discourse on the scientific event. Aristotle wrote about it, too, but, according to records, the technique was first mastered by Arab or Persian scientist Alhazen in A.D. 1021.

Centuries later, Leonardo da Vinci detailed the phenomenon in Codex Atlanticus, and some scholars believe that acclaimed artists like Johannes Vermeer traced their illustrations using the camera obscura as a guide. Especially during the Renaissance, they'd never admit it. "Their magic was from their hand, from their intelligence, from their talent. Not from this tool," said Litvak.

As modern photography emerged in the 19th century, researchers found ways to keep the image upright and more in line with conventions. But Litvak and Orgera wanted to return to the artform's origins, ignoring contraptions for another day. They even decided against using a lens for focus.

"The idea of just a hole in the wall was really appealing, just to show people how simple the concept of photography really is," Orgera said.

While selecting the apertures, she and Litvak tried to imagine what scene they would reflect. "We were interested in a lot of the neighborhood activity that happens by John's Water Ice," Orgera explained. "We knew we wanted to capture some of that view so it would really be an alive scene. One of the most beautiful things about the room is it's different than photography because it's alive, it's moving. The image is always changing."

Orgera shoots both with a pinhole camera and on her cell phone. "What's amazing is it's all built on the same principles," she said. "And I think that's what's so fun about the camera obscura and pinhole photography, and all of that. Every camera works this way. You just keep adding bells and whistles. You add a lens, or you add mechanics. But in the end, it's all this principle of a hole, and light, and what happens on the other side."

Collecting Place: Inside the Camera Obscura, Through Aug. 12 at the Center for Works on Paper, 705 Christian St. Hours: 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Free. InformatioN: 215-922-3456 ext. 300, fleisher.org.

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