Books
Camera by ISBN: 9781402756566Publication Date: 2009-10-06Cameras, and what they capture, forever changed our perception of the world, and of ourselves. Few inventions have had the impact of this ingenious, elegant, and deceptively simple device. This gorgeous cornerstone volume, created in collaboration with the world-famous George Eastman House, celebrates the camera and the art of the photograph. It spans almost two hundred years of progress, from the first faint image ever caught to the instantaneous pictures snapped by today’s state-of-the-art digital equipment. The informative narrative by Todd Gustavson traces the camera’s development, the lives of its brilliant but often eccentric inventors, and the artists behind the lens. Images and highly descriptive captions for more than 350 cameras from the George Eastman House Collection, plus more than 100 historic photos, ads, and drawings, complement the text. A foreword by the George Eastman House Director Anthony Bannon, and insightful essays by Steve Sasson, inventor of the digital camera, and Alexis Gerard, visionary founder and president of Future Image Inc., completes this illuminating study of one of the greatest modern technological achievements.
Videos (Made with Cameras) Explaining How Cameras Work
Although many early photographic methods produced black-and-white images, most of our own experiences with photography involve color. The video below, from the George Eastman Museum, explains how color photography works.
Analog (non-digital) photography today still relies on one thing: silver. The video below explains how silver atoms in film react with sunlight to produce an image.
Digital cameras don't use film, but the principles of photography remain the same. Light strikes a light-sensitive surface and produces a reaction. In the digital camera, computer circuits detect the reaction and interpret it. Watch the video below, from the British Broadcasting Corporation, for a more detailed discussion.
What does a lens do? Why do we use them in cameras? The science of the lens is explored in the video below, produced by camera manufacturer Canon.
Camera Ob-what?
The word "camera" actually predates photography. The camera obscura - a piece of technology which has been around since at least the 1500s - was a box or room with a hole (or aperature) in the wall. This aperature produced a single, inverted image of whatever was outside of the box or room. Click here to learn more about the camera obscura.
Abelardo Morell is a contemporary artist who uses a camera obscura as part of his photography. You can find one of his images on the Home page of this LibGuide and explore his work on his website.
Build Your Own Camera
Interested in creating your own camera obscura or "pinhole camera"? Check out this video from https://www.pinholephotography.org/