Bob Walken wrote: In some ways photography has been around since at least the Middle Ages. There's a fascinating book by Philip Steadman called "Vermeer's Camera" in which the author argues that Vermeer used a camera obscura to paint his most famous works. He makes a very good case.
Yes, maybe or probably, Vermeer did. Absolutly sure is that his collegue, a painter called Johan Fabritius, living like Vermeer in Delft, used such a camera. There's a painting left in which he has painted the new church in Delft with a kind of fish-eye wideangle lens. The picture can be seen at http://gallery.euroweb.hu/html/f/fabritiu/view_del.html The exact spot in Delft, the church, the houses, all still exist, and it has been one of my plans for a long time to try and make a similar "real" photograph, apporaching the original as much as possible (maybe with a Pentax and a fish-eye, maybe with a Horizont panoramic camera - just have to see what matches best. Fabritius became only 32, was killed in the big gunpowder explosion in Delft. Probably not many paintings were made by him, or at least did survive. Regards, John - This message is from the Pentax-Discuss Mail List. To unsubscribe, go to http://www.pdml.net and follow the directions. Don't forget to visit the Pentax Users' Gallery at http://pug.komkon.org .
