Book Review: Camera Obscura

Camera Obscura

One of the books that I chose for this assignment was Camera Obscura by Abelardo Morell. This book consisted of about 50 black and white photographs taken with a large format camera. To create these photographs, Morell turned rooms into camera obscuras by blacking out any light except for a small pinhole of light from outside a window. This small pinhole of light would project an upside down image of whatever was outside the window onto the walls of the room. Most of the photographs were of interiors, but several were taken outside and several with a camera obscura made with a cardboard box. The photos inside often showed very bare or plain rooms with the projected image of a building or place that seemed very grand. Some, however, like the ones taken in his own home, showed ordinary buildings or scenes projected on a wall.

I felt that these photographs were very interesting and that they were concerned with the relation of the outside and the inside world and the contrast that sometimes exists between them. In the photographs of his home, for example, the outside world seems to come inside, into the private world of his home. In one photograph, the houses across the street from his bedroom are projected onto his bed and the wall above it. Having the outside intrude on what is usually the most private room of the home shows how people live a private life, behind closed doors, and a public life outside, and how these two sometimes overlap, often in ways we don’t want them to.


Many of the other photographs show famous monuments, such as the Eiffel Tower and the Empire State Building, projected on the walls of bland, ordinary hotel rooms. These hotels are the kind of places one might stay at during a vacation to view a famous building or monument; however, they seem insignificant when compared to what is projected on the walls. This shows a contrast between the real world of the hotels and the fantasy world of the monuments. Although someone may visit a famous sight, it is really only a fantasy that one participates in for a short amount of time. No one lives his or her life in the Eiffel Tower. At the end of the day a person has to live a real life in the boring rooms and offices that these places are projected in.

I think that these pictures also show a concern for what is real and what is an illusion. The picture of the Eiffel tower, for example, is especially amusing, as the Eiffel Tower is projected right next to a framed drawing of the Eiffel Tower. The sad-looking print of the Eiffel Tower is no match for the real one projected next to it, however, they are both, in a way, just pictures of the Eiffel Tower. I think that this is a clever play on what is real and what is an illusion, since although the projected Eiffel Tower seems to be the “real” one, it is actually just an illusion while the picture, though just a representation of the Eiffel Tower, actually exists in the room.


I think that these photographs are also about photography itself, since they are in a way photographs of photographs. In my favorite photograph in the book, for example, a light bulb is projected into a box that has been turned into a camera obscura. The photograph shows the entire setup, including the light bulb outside and projected inside the box. I think that this picture is an original way of taking a photograph of a photograph, since that is what the image projected inside the box essentially is. It is also a photograph of an object that produces light, which is what makes photography possible. I think that this photograph is really about photography in a way that is very original.

Here is a link to Morell's website which shows many of the pictures from Camera Obscura. On his site he also includes some color camera obscura pictures which were not in the book but are very interesting.