One of the beautiful things of photography, is all the steps that actually brought us up to understanding how we could capture images and invented the camera. One important invention of that was a huge discovery for the creation of photography was the Camera Obscura. We explored how it works and a bit of history.

Documented discoveries are found back on year 500 BC, China. Mo Ti and also Aristotle had an experience with projecting light through a little hole. My beloved Da Vinci also used them.

The camera obscura is basically an empty dark place (box for example), with a little hole in one part of it. Light enters through the little hole and projects the illuminated image in the other side of the box. (Look picture)

The way it works implies to understand the nature of light. Light, first of all travels in a straight line and it tries to get everywhere! So the light travels into the hole in straight lines, and that is why you see, diagonally, the traveling of light  and how it turns around the image!

"Nostalgia de la Luz" is an interesting documentary that talks about the different types of research in Atacama desert. There are different types of quests. 

First of all, the Atacama desert is an isolated place at the south of Chile. It has zero level of humidity, but it's the best place in earth to look at the skies. So, one of the searches there is finding and discovering new things on the celestial bodies. 

On the other hand, native cultures used to pass through this desert with their lamas. And, here is also the tomb of the rebels during Pinochet's dictatorship. Because of the latter, there are women searching for the bodies of the dear ones in the vast desert. 

But at the end, they're all looking into the past. "We're always looking into the past" said one astronomer in the documentary. "The present doesn't exist."

But one past is full of blood, the other is full of stardust. But also, these stars are made of the same matter that we, humans are made of. On this I would recall Sagan's famous quote "we're made of stardust".

"Nostalgia" is actually a word that has a meaning that implies looking into the past. This whole documentary (even having the experience) is looking into the past. And reading it. Even in the most "dead" desert!