# Camera obscura

> A dark box with a tiny hole — scenes outside land upside-down on the far wall.

**Ibn al-Haytham** · c. 1021 — Book of Optics

Ibn al-Haytham described a dark room with a small hole and an inverted image of the sunlit street. The Latin name came later. Painters used the same box for centuries; whether Vermeer did is a long argument with no hole in the surviving studios.

Three beams through a pinhole is enough: the far screen shows the world upside down. Open the hole and the picture brightens and smears. That trade is the whole instrument.

## Sources

- [Camera obscura](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camera_obscura)
- [Ibn al-Haytham](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibn_al-Haytham)

## Links

- [HTML](https://www.loomrume.com/examples/camera-obscura)
- [Open in Studio](https://www.loomrume.com/studio?template=camera-obscura)
- [llms.txt](https://www.loomrume.com/llms.txt)