Obscura

"...sometimes I hide under covers, in the darkness of night, just to wait for the light..."

Imagine taking a picture with a camera obscura. Imagine holding a pose for more than 20 minutes. Imagine that. What do you think? Especially in the world that we live in now where time is everything and that snapping a picture in seconds is practically second nature.

            But I do wonder. About the camera obscura. That simple pinhole camera that have existed for a very long time. I wonder what it would be like to be standing in front of one – posing. But what goes through my mind is not how tiresome it would be. Instead, I am slightly dazed. Dazed in a good way – somewhere in the lines of amazed, yes. But why? Because you see, this ancient invention whose name literally just means ‘darkened room’ forced something that has long since to have been forgotten by men - men in pursuit of progress. The camera obscura forced you to live a moment in time. Long enough to get lost in it. Long enough for it to mean something and by which becomes meaningless as the next moment crashes into you to take its rightful place in your life. That’s what I think of about the camera obscura.

       And when I do think of it, though not as often as you might think I do, I look to my modern camera - this innovative device born from the brilliant obscura, whose name had also been passed down by it. How many times have I picked it up and clicked away blindly?

        So many sentiments we have lost through time. So many treasures, simple yet obscurely profound, like the camera obscura, the pinhole wonder box, the darkened room that lighted many hearts and minds.

xoxo