Plenty will know the name ‘camera obscura’ but how many know what it means, how it works or have seen it in action? One of the wonderful things about Glastonbury Festival (and yes, I’ve been prattling on about the other wonderful things for a while now) is the huge variety of things on offer at the festival, and the Theatre & Circus fields have perhaps the greatest variety of happenings of anywhere on site.
In addition to their famous Walkabout acts, who roam around the fields interacting with festival-goers, there are a host of static attractions available in Bella’s Field – named for Arabella Churchill who helped found the festival and led the Theatre & Circus fields from the early ’80s until her untimely passing in 2007.
Here is where you’ll find a fully-fledged escape room inside a portaloo (very festival-appropriate), crazy golf and even the world’s smallest solar-powered cinema showing free short movies. It’s where you’ll have the unique opportunity to try our camera obscura – and don’t worry, if you didn’t know what the name means (it means ‘dark chamber’), how it works or had a chance to try it in action, the lovely hosts at the Amazing Camera Obscura, including owner Tony, were on hand to fill us in and show us how to work it.
In its simplest form, it’s a dark room with a small hole in one wall that projects an image of whatever is outside on the wall opposite. The Amazing Camera Obscura in Bella’s Field goes further with a mirror to project the image onto a viewing system at the room’s centre, a pulley system that allows you to rotate it for 360 view and plates that allow you to focus in on what you’d like to see better in the image.
It felt almost naughty to be then left alone to play with this amazing Victorian gadget that uses an effect that dates back to the 6th century. The image produced by it is incredible – we tried focusing in and out on the nearby Cabaret tent, on the festival’s painted bins and on passersby, using the pads to focus on the cans in their hands to see what brand of beer they were drinking. It was a fantastic peek back in time and truly astounding. With the number of these objects, once seen across seaside towns, dwindling, it was a real treat to have the chance to give one a go.
Amazing Camera Obscura was at Glastonbury Festival 2024, running from 26 to 30 June
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