HiSTOrY aNd HaNdBOOK OF PHOTOgraPHY

Figure 1: The dark room penetrating through the circular hole into the dark room were projected on to a white screen, on which they depicted the reversed image of exterior objects (Figure 1). The simple observation of Nature might have led at once to this discovery. The foliage of trees does not entirely intercept the sun’s light, it often allows rays of light to pass through the spaces which exist between the leaves, and the images of the ruler of the day appear as luminous discs in the midst of the well-defined shadows on the ground (Figure 2). It is easy to reproduce this phenomenon by passing the light of a candle across a small orifice, and projecting it on to a screen, on which a reversed image of the flame will be seen.

Porta, in his treatise on Natural Magic, goes into raptures, and excusably, over his discovery, of which he seems to have foreseen all the future importance; he describes it with irrepressible

16 | The Origin of Photography