Camera Obscura
Honestly this is one of my favorite topics since my dad's a photographer and taught me pretty much everything I know about cameras. The earliest cameras were said to be invented around 400BC by a Chinese philosopher named Mo-tzu and in the 4th century the Greek philosopher Aristotle realized it could be used to see a partial eclipse.
It wasn't until the 11th century that the camera obscura was used to reflect a full still image. As for the name, the actual term wasn't coined until 1604 by Johannes Kepler who invented a portable version he used for his astrology research in Austria.
Obviously there's a lot more to the camera's history, but I only wanted to share a quick overview of what a camera obscura is and how it got it's name before we get into the cooler and spookier aspects. So to give you a bit more context, one of my favorite videogames is called Fatal Frame or Project Zero where you have to defend yourself with only a camera with the ability to exorcise ghosts. It's a really good game, especially if you like the classics. Too bad real ghosts aren't so easy to deal with...
Moving on though, I mentioned in my previous post about how mirrors, photographs, and self-portrait paintings were sometimes believed to steal the souls -or at least a small fragment of them- of whoever is being reflected inside. And when you think about it, early cameras were pretty much the same thing. It's a lens that reflects the inverted image of something or someone in a dark room and later on it became possible to 'capture' the image on film by burning the image onto it.
Fun fact, that's why people had to stay perfectly still when taking a family portrait or something because the process of imprinting their image on film took time and moving would make the image blurry.
As for the rest when it comes to the paranormal myths about cameras, over the years I've learned that some stories about ghosts caught on camera are sadly either made up or clever hoaxes. There are definitely some cases where real ghosts have appeared on camera, but the idea that they can only been seen that way by normal people like us isn't true. The fact of the matter is you usually need a special camera to be able to see them if they're invisible since ghosts still have a low temperature, which means that you can detect them with an infrared camera but that only matters if you're out doing a paranormal investigation.
As far as actual photographs being haunted or possessed by ghosts...well, judging from what I've seen it's usually not so much that the photos themselves 'trap' ghosts, it's more like they're the ones who can't move on so it's an emotional attachment keeping them in there. Or at least an echo of their strong feelings and memories. It's the same with paintings in most cases.
In rare cases, there is some kind of magic or curse involved that has trapped the soul of their victim inside of an object but there's no way to safely test that theory. As you can imagine, the last thing I want to do is unleash a vengeful spirit by accident! Anyways, that's it for now but maybe next time I'll talk about videos since that's my main area of expertise. I am a vlogger after all! But if there's anything else you'd like to hear me talk about next, feel free to ask!
