dumfries camera obscura

So i was in Dumfries last weekend, and decided to go and see the Dumfries Camera Obscura. Its not a tribute band ((c) Kenny), but a proper camera obscura. Its the oldest working one in the world apparently. If you don't know what a camera obscura is, its a lens and mirrors built so you can lever them around and the image its pointing at will be inverted onto a screen or table inside the building. Its a pretty amazing thing. The Dumfries one is built in what was originally a windmill, so its a really cool old building.

We managed to get a private viewing (when i say private viewing, it was 10am, and no one was stupid enough to be up that early on a Saturday morning) so we got a personal 20 minute demonstration of how it all works along with descriptions of Dumfries throughout the ages as the lens cast its eye across the town. Interesting stuff, and quite a lot of stuff about Robert Burns when he lived in the town towards the end of his life, which was cool.

It was funny watching the guy operating the equipment, pulling levers to move the lens round , and pushing/pulling the table/screen that the image was inverted onto, which slides up and down to put the image into focus. He obviously does the talk every day, and gets to look all around Dumfries, and the impression was given that he gets to spy on folk going about their everyday business. Dirty rascal.

I heard that someone in the Edinburgh Camera Obscura, during the demonstration, saw their car being stolen, and they phoned the police and the guy controlling the lens followed the car round the city and they caught the thief, which is handy.

Gav