At The 7th Day, a pinhole camera remains in one place for days, weeks or even months, collecting light and time on a single sheet of photographic paper. Both In Time uses the same simple photographic technique, but follows a different idea. Here, an image is not created by one person alone, but between two people.

The camera has two openings. One person exposes the first half of the photographic paper. The camera is then passed on. At another place and at another time, a second person exposes the other half. This can happen days, weeks or even years later. Only when both exposures are complete does the shared image become visible. Both moments exist on the same negative and together form a single photograph.

Developing the image is also part of the project. The negative can be developed at home in a darkened kitchen using Caffenol. Instant coffee, vitamin C and washing soda are used for the process. A traditional darkroom is not required. The cameras are handmade in Stuttgart and individually tested.

Both In Time turns a simple pinhole camera into a photographic experiment about connection, distance and time. You can learn how the camera works and how a shared image is created at bothintime.com.

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No electronics, digital sensor or complex technology are required.

There is one fascinating detail: the projected image appears upside down and reversed from left to right.

This simple optical principle has been known for centuries and became one of the foundations of photography. It eventually led from the dark chamber to the photographic pinhole camera and the cameras we use today.

At The 7th Day, we still work with this principle. Our pinhole cameras contain no glass lens or electronics. They use only a tiny opening, photographic paper and time.

What does Camera Obscura mean?

The term Camera Obscura comes from Latin. “Camera” means chamber or room, while “obscura” means dark.

Camera Obscura therefore literally means dark chamber.

Early Camera Obscura devices could actually be entire rooms. The room was almost completely sealed from light, with only a small opening allowing daylight to enter. An image of the outside world then appeared on the opposite wall.

Over time, these rooms became smaller. Large chambers developed into portable boxes and optical devices, but the underlying principle remained the same.

How does a Camera Obscura work?

The Camera Obscura works because light travels approximately in straight lines.

Illuminated objects reflect light in many different directions. The tiny opening of a Camera Obscura restricts the amount of light that can enter the dark chamber.

The light rays cross at the opening. Light coming from the top of a building reaches the lower part of the projection surface. Light from the bottom reaches the upper part. The same process takes place from left to right.

The result is a real projection of the outside world that appears upside down and laterally reversed.

No computer, image sensor or conventional camera lens is required. A dark space, a small opening and light are enough to create the image.

Why is the Camera Obscura image upside down?

The inverted image is a direct result of the path travelled by the light.

Imagine a tree standing outside the Camera Obscura. Light reflected from the top of the tree travels through the small opening and reaches the lower part of the opposite surface. Light from the bottom of the tree travels upwards.

The light rays cross at the aperture. As a result, top becomes bottom and left becomes right.

This is one of the reasons a Camera Obscura is such a useful way to understand photography. The formation of an image can be observed directly without being hidden behind electronics or software.

Why does a Camera Obscura need a small hole?

The size of the opening affects both the brightness and sharpness of the image.

A larger hole allows more light to enter. The projection becomes brighter, but it also becomes less defined because more light rays overlap.

A smaller opening allows less light to enter. The image becomes darker, while its contours can become clearer.

However, an infinitely small hole would not produce an infinitely sharp image. When the aperture becomes extremely small, diffraction also begins to affect the light.

The ideal pinhole is therefore a compromise between brightness and image sharpness.

What is the difference between a Camera Obscura and a pinhole camera?

The terms Camera Obscura and pinhole camera are often used interchangeably today, but there is a useful distinction between them.

A traditional Camera Obscura creates a projection. You can see the image on a wall, screen or another surface, but the image is not automatically recorded.

A photographic pinhole camera uses the same optical principle but places light-sensitive material where the projection appears. This material can be photographic film, photographic paper or another photosensitive surface.

The projection can therefore become a photograph.

Put simply:

The Camera Obscura describes the fundamental optical principle. A photographic pinhole camera uses that principle to record an image.

Historical Camera Obscura devices did not always rely exclusively on a simple hole either. Later versions sometimes incorporated lenses and mirrors to produce a brighter or more convenient projection.

Who invented the Camera Obscura?

There is no single inventor of the Camera Obscura.

The optical phenomenon was observed, studied and developed by different people over many centuries.

Related observations were already known in antiquity. Centuries later, the scholar Ibn al-Haytham, also known in Europe as Alhazen, made important contributions to the study of light, vision and optics.

Leonardo da Vinci also described the Camera Obscura and compared its operation with the human eye.

Over the following centuries, the dark chamber developed into increasingly practical and portable optical instruments.

You can explore this development in more detail in our article about the history of the Camera Obscura.

What was the Camera Obscura used for?

Long before photographs could be permanently recorded, the Camera Obscura was already used in science, astronomy and art.

Artists could use the projected image as a reference for perspective and proportions. Landscapes, architecture and other subjects could be projected onto a surface and studied or traced more easily.

The optical principle was also useful for scientific observations.

In this sense, the Camera Obscura was a camera before photography existed. It could already create an optical image. What was still missing was a way to preserve that image permanently.

How did the Camera Obscura lead to photography?

The great challenge was not creating an image. The Camera Obscura had already been able to do that for centuries.

The challenge was making the image permanent.

In the early nineteenth century, Joseph Nicéphore Niépce experimented with light-sensitive materials inside a Camera Obscura. In 1816, he succeeded in producing photographic negatives, although these early images could not yet be permanently fixed.

Niépce continued his experiments and developed a different process. In 1826 or 1827, he created the photograph now known as View from the Window at Le Gras, generally regarded as the oldest surviving photograph made with a camera.

The temporary projection of the Camera Obscura had finally become a lasting photographic image.

What does a modern camera have in common with a Camera Obscura?

Centuries of technological development separate a simple Camera Obscura from a modern digital camera, but the fundamental idea is still related.

A modern camera also controls light entering a dark interior. Its lens focuses the incoming light and projects an image onto photographic film or an electronic image sensor.

The Camera Obscura reveals the same basic process in its simplest form.

That simplicity makes it one of the best ways to understand photography. An image does not begin with software, a screen or a smartphone. It begins with light.

Can a Camera Obscura take photographs?

Yes. When light-sensitive material is placed inside the Camera Obscura, the projection can be recorded photographically.

This is also the principle behind the cameras we use for The 7th Day.

Inside each of our pinhole cameras is a piece of black-and-white photographic paper. As soon as the pinhole is uncovered, the exposure begins. Light reaches the same piece of photographic paper for days, weeks or even months.

The result is very different from a conventional snapshot.

Stationary buildings and landscapes remain visible. People, cars and other moving objects may become blurred or disappear because they are only present for a small part of the total exposure.

The movement of the sun can leave particularly striking traces across the photographic paper.

A single photograph can therefore record not only a place, but also the passage of time.

Why do pinhole cameras need long exposure times?

Only a small amount of light can pass through a pinhole. Exposure times are therefore usually longer than those required by cameras using conventional lenses.

At The 7th Day, we deliberately use this characteristic.

Our cameras can remain in the same location for days, weeks, months or even longer. During that time, the surroundings continuously change. The sun moves across the sky, people come and go, weather conditions change and the light is never exactly the same.

The final photograph compresses these different moments into a single image.

Try a Camera Obscura yourself

You can experience the basic Camera Obscura principle using little more than a dark box and a tiny opening.

If you want to record an actual photograph instead of simply viewing a projection, you will also need light-sensitive material.

Our pinhole camera manual explains in more detail how our photographic Camera Obscura works, how to position the camera and how the exposure process works.

You can also participate directly in The 7th Day. Our cameras arrive preloaded with photographic paper. You choose a location, expose your image and return the photographic paper to us afterwards.

We digitize the original negative and create the final image.

Learn more about The 7th Day pinhole camera project.

Is the Camera Obscura still relevant today?

We obviously no longer need a Camera Obscura simply to take a photograph, but the principle remains relevant.

In education, it makes basic optics easy to understand. Museums and walk-in Camera Obscura installations allow visitors to experience the phenomenon directly. In contemporary photography and art, pinhole cameras create possibilities that are very different from digital photography.

This contrast is particularly interesting today.

Modern cameras and smartphones can create hundreds of photographs within minutes. A Camera Obscura can do almost the opposite: create a single image over days, weeks, months or even years.

More than 13,000 people from around the world have already experimented with this principle through The 7th Day.

The camera may be incredibly simple, but every resulting photograph is different.

Frequently asked questions about the Camera Obscura

Conclusion: The Camera Obscura reveals the origins of photography

The Camera Obscura shows photography in its simplest form.

A dark chamber, a tiny opening and light are enough to create an image.

Over centuries, this simple principle developed into the photographic pinhole camera, the analogue camera and eventually the sophisticated digital cameras we use today.

Yet the Camera Obscura can still show us something modern cameras often hide: the fundamental moment when light becomes an image.

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What Is a Camera Obscura?

A Camera Obscura is essentially a dark box with a tiny hole. Light passes through this hole and projects an inverted image of the outside world onto the opposite surface. This simple principle is the foundation of photography and was already studied by Leonardo da Vinci and Ibn al-Haytham. Later, Joseph Nicéphore Niépce used it to capture the world’s first photograph in 1826.

For a deeper introduction, visit our Camera Obscura guide.

Ready-Made Camera Obscura Models

If you want to start right away, you can buy a variety of Camera Obscura kits and models online. Shops and marketplaces like Etsy – Camera Obscura Kits offer beautifully crafted wooden cameras, ready to use with photo paper. These are perfect for beginners, hobby photographers, or as a creative gift.

DIY Camera Obscura Kits

For children, schools, or anyone who enjoys experimenting, DIY pinhole camera kits are a wonderful option. With a few simple parts, kids can assemble their own pinhole camera and discover how light creates images. It’s not only a creative activity but also a hands-on way to learn about optics.

Which Photo Paper to Choose?

To capture images inside the Camera Obscura, you’ll need light-sensitive photo paper. Black-and-white paper is often the best choice, as it allows for longer exposures and creates magical effects like solargraphy, where the path of the sun is recorded across the sky over weeks or months.

You can learn more about this fascinating technique in our article: soon available

Whether you buy a Camera Obscura or build your own, this simple optical device opens up a world of creativity. It is an excellent educational tool for children, a source of inspiration for artists, and a unique way for photographers to reconnect with the origins of photography.

Good to know: With most camera obscura cameras and DIY kits, the biggest hurdle comes after exposure: developing and digitizing the negative. You need to find a lab, buy chemicals, and scan the image. It takes time and adds extra costs.

With our Participation Set, that work disappears. You expose the photo and send it back. We handle professional development and high-resolution digitizing and deliver the final image to you. Everything is included in the price, no additional costs.

Join now: Participate

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Camera Obscura in Contemporary Art

Artists value the medium’s slowness and serendipity. Weeks- or months-long pinhole exposures produce solargraphs that trace the sun’s path, turning time itself into an image. Our project The 7th Day invites people worldwide to place simple pinhole cameras; returned results become part of a growing archive—a collective artwork about time and light.

Camera Obscura in Education

In classrooms and workshops, building a pinhole camera with simple materials reveals how light forms images. For many young makers it’s a first encounter with analog photography—sparking curiosity and bridging science and art.

The Millennium Camera – Photographing the Next 1,000 Years

A striking contemporary example is artist and experimental philosopher Jonathon Keats’s Millennium Camera: a radically durable pinhole camera that exposes a single image over roughly a millennium to register landscape change.

• In 2015, the ASU Art Museum in Tempe, Arizona, installed a Millennium Camera slated to be unveiled in 3015, aimed at the city skyline to condense a thousand years of urban transformation into one photograph. (news.asu.edu, Atlas Obscura, PetaPixel)
• In 2024, another Millennium Camera was sited in Tucson (Tumamoc Hill) with University of Arizona collaborators. Light passes through a pin-sized hole in 24-karat gold into a copper cylinder, gradually fading layered rose-madder oil pigments to form an image—meant to be opened about a thousand years from now. (University of Arizona News, New Atlas, Smithsonian Magazine)
• Coverage by outlets such as Hyperallergic frames the project as the world’s slowest photograph and a prompt to consider our responsibilities to future generations. (Hyperallergic, aau.edu)

Together, these works show how the camera obscura operates today as art, inquiry, and civic imagination.

Camera Obscura as a Source of Inspiration

Even in the age of smartphones, the camera obscura reminds us that photography exceeds technique. It’s an exploration of light, time, and perception—from art history and creative projects to playful experiments for kids.

For further context on ultra-long exposures and what’s been achieved to date, see documented records of years-long pinhole photographs. (National Geographic, My Modern Met)

Art Project “Camera Obscura 2005/1–∞”
A compelling net-art initiative is Camera Obscura 2005/1–∞, launched in 2005 by Przemek Zajfert and Burkhard Walter and dedicated to Roman Opałka. It uses a twin-pinhole camera: each week the two “holes” were auctioned on eBay; the highest bidders received the same camera loaded with 5×7-inch film, pierced their pinhole with a supplied needle, made an exposure, and passed the camera on. Because the two openings are very close together, the two exposures partially overlap, forming a joint image created by people in different places—a global puzzle of parallel exposures. The series is documented online and intended for physical display as well. Project site: http://www.camera-obscura-1-inf.net.

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Far from obsolete, the camera obscura bridges past and present. Its simplicity makes it accessible; its results continue to surprise. And with visionary efforts like the Millennium Camera, the medium looks boldly toward the year 3015 and beyond. (Hyperallergic)

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The human eye

In the eye, the eyeball acts as the chamber, the pupil regulates the amount of light, and the retina serves as the projection surface. Similarly, the Camera Obscura allows light through a pinhole into a lightproof box, where it forms an image on the back wall or on photosensitive paper. In both cases, the image appears inverted and mirrored – a phenomenon that puzzled scientists for centuries until the Camera Obscura made the mechanics visible.

The Camera Obscura

The differences, however, are significant. Unlike the simple pinhole of the Camera Obscura, the eye has a lens that continuously focuses and adjusts, providing sharp and detailed vision. Moreover, the eye does not merely project light; it translates it into electrical signals, which the brain interprets into coherent images. The Camera Obscura, by contrast, shows a direct, unprocessed projection – an optical truth untouched by interpretation.

This comparison was revolutionary in the history of science. The Camera Obscura demonstrated that the image on the retina is indeed inverted, and that it is the brain’s task to correct and interpret it. It bridged the gap between optics and biology, offering a tangible model for understanding how we see.

Today, the Camera Obscura is more than a scientific analogy. In art projects like The 7th Day, the same principle is used to capture long exposures that reveal traces of time and light invisible to the human eye. While our eyes capture the present moment, the Camera Obscura preserves the continuum of time, offering us a vision that goes beyond natural perception.

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After several days of exposure, an image slowly appeared: the outlines of a house, rooftops, and trees – inverted and in negative tones. This was the first photograph in the world. But Niépce faced a problem: without a fixing process, the paper continued to darken when exposed to light, and the image eventually vanished. He called this early method “Retina”, inspired by the human eye.

A few years later, Niépce made a breakthrough with bitumen of Judea applied to a pewter plate. In 1826 or 1827, he created the first permanent photograph, famously known as the View from the Window at Le Gras. This image is considered the true starting point of the history of photography. You can read more in our article On the Trail of Joseph Nicéphore Niépce.

From Historical Experiment to Contemporary Art

The Camera Obscura has never lost its magic. In our project The 7th Day, we build simple pinhole cameras and use long exposure photography to capture not just a moment, but the passage of time. Just like in Niépce’s early experiments, still objects remain sharp, while the movement of the sun, clouds, or people leaves only traces or ghostly shadows.

The world’s first photograph was not only the beginning of a technological revolution, but also an artistic reflection on transience and the way we perceive reality.

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The Seventh Day: Silver, Lavender, Asphalt, Sun and Time

Why restraint makes you creative and free

What happens when, instead of taking one thousand snapshots, you make just one image and expose it for days, weeks, or even months? The artist and photographer Przemek Zajfert shows in his TEDx Talk how radical reduction, a pinhole camera, light, and a lot of patience lead to surprising freedom. His project The 7th Day is a poetic invitation to rediscover time as a design material.

What the talk is about

In the talk, Przemek Zajfert speaks about a simple, almost magical tool, the Camera Obscura. A light tight can, a tiny hole, a light sensitive sheet of paper, that is all you need. No lens, no display, no autofocus. Instead of snapping in milliseconds, you let the world act on it for a long time, hours, days, sometimes months. The result is not the crisp moment we know from smartphones but a condensation of time. In the images, the paths of the sun appear as arcs, changes in the weather weave textures into the sky, and even small coincidences, spider silk, pollen, raindrops, become co authors.

This attitude, less technology, more attention, is the core of The 7th Day. People around the world mount their home made pinhole cameras on windows, fences, or lamp posts, wait patiently, and then share a single image that shows time like a landscape. From many individual contributions a collective memory of places, seasons, and light emerges.

The five words in the title and what they mean

Silver: In analog photography, silver halides react to light. In the pinhole camera this quiet chemistry lives in the paper as well. It makes invisible duration visible.

Lavender and asphalt: A small bow to the early days of photography. Joseph Nicéphore Niépce experimented with bitumen that hardens in sunlight, dissolved in lavender oil. From this mixture came heliography, one of the oldest photographic techniques. An early proof that patience and sun are enough.

Sun and time: Both are the real lens in the project. The sun traces its path day by day. Time lets structures grow that we overlook in everyday life.

How The 7th Day works in three simple steps

Fix the pinhole camera: A small box without a lens, with a pin sized hole, firmly mounted in one place. Inside lies light sensitive photographic paper.

Expose for a long time: Outside, a few days often suffice, faster in summer, longer in winter, indoors rather weeks. Overexposure is surprisingly rare. Time distributes light like a fine brush.

Make the image visible: The paper is removed and digitized. What appears is a portrait of time, not a single moment but what happens between moments.

Why this approach matters today

Slowing down instead of point and shoot: In a world full of burst shots, the pinhole camera reminds us that waiting can be a creative method. Once you mount the camera, you start to think about direction, season, and rhythm.

Democratic and accessible: You do not need expensive gear. The project shows that curiosity and patience are enough to make art. It is ideal for schools, workshops, clubs, or curious individuals.

A new look at place: Long exposure reveals qualities that escape the quick eye. How does the weather move, where does the light travel, what traces does everyday life leave.

Want to get started yourself?

You only need a light tight can, a pin prick, and photographic paper. Find a spot with an open view to the sky, mount the camera so it resists the weather, mark the start date, and let time do the work. The first result is rarely perfect but almost always surprising. With every attempt your feel for location, angle, and duration grows.

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Click here to get to the project.

Exposure time per image – one year

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The camera was attached to the gate of the silent house in Ameugny (Taize) for 7 days and accompanied the silence of the participants. The movement of the gate was the only external sign of communication with the non-silent world.

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A key reason lies in the photographic paper we use. Each type of paper has its own chemical composition and therefore reacts differently to light. In our project, we use hundreds of different papers – some of them more than 50 years old. (see images below)

Comparing Different Photographic Papers

To illustrate these differences, we carried out a small experiment:
We exposed fifteen different types of photographic paper to light. Half of each sheet was covered with black cardboard (Image 1).

Result: In Image 4 the different color nuances of each paper can clearly be seen.

After two hours of exposure: the uncovered parts had already darkened significantly.

After another two and a half hours: the previously covered areas also darkened until each sheet showed a uniform tone (Image 2–3).

Negative and Positive – An Example

In the following image you see on the left a sheet of photographic paper exposed for one year as a negative:

• Areas with a lot of sunlight appear in deep blue (for example, the traces of the sun).
• Areas with less light exposure remain brighter (such as the house in the picture).

When we invert this negative into a positive, the complementary colors emerge:

• The blue traces of the sun become a strong red.
• The house shifts from purple/yellow to green/blue.

Photographs with a short exposure time (7–14 days) usually appear more monochrome.
With long-term exposures, however, a wide spectrum of colors often develops.

Chance as Part of the Art Project

What the final image will look like is something we can never predict. This element of chance is an essential part of our project: every photograph becomes a unique work of art.

We would like to thank the I.G. Schwarz-Weiß Fotoclub Weil der Stadt e.V. for kindly providing the photographic papers used in this experiment.

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