Photography with Travis Zhang
From the Pinhole
How photography works, one question per lesson.
Why does a pinhole flip the world?
Light travels in straight lines: a small hole gives a sharp, dim image, a big one a bright, blurred one. From the Mohist Canon to Shen Kuo.
Why the lens, aperture and mirror all came before photography
Over three hundred years the camera obscura grew a lens, an aperture and a mirror, and took the shape of a camera.
Why did the first photograph take hours to expose?
Niépce's metal plate is the earliest surviving photograph taken with a camera.
Why is 1839 called the birth of photography?
Photographs already existed, so why 1839? Daguerre's process cut the exposure to minutes.
About 10 minutes each, in English and Chinese. Narration is an AI-synthesised voice; the animations are rendered in code.