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History of the Camera Lucida


The Lost Secrets of the Old Masters:This is a very interesting interview with David Hockney, where he explains and demonstrates the use of camera obscuras and camera lucidas in the artwork of the Old Masters chronicled in his book “Secret Knowledge: Rediscovering the Lost Techniques of the Old Masters”.


An article about Hockney’s theory: click here.

Below are David Hockney’s full Secret Knowledge Documentary and some of the scientific evidence for Hockney’s theory FULL PLAY LIST.

From The Beginning

The short answer: A camera lucida, like the LUCY or LUCID-Art, is a device used to reflect a large image over your drawing surface, so you can sketch out the subject.A camera obscura is a device that projects an image onto a screen to help you with perspective, tonal rendering, composition, handling of light, and getting a classic ‘Vermeer look’ to your paintings. The camera obscura can also be very useful for photographers.


The next video gives a more detailed answer with images and diagrams.

A New Experience of Flavor

Coffee tastes have changed so much that I remember around 2012, introducing a much more acidic coffee into our blend thinking we were going to lead customers into a new experience of flavour, only to be dismayed on day one with customer’s dissatisfaction with a fruitier and more flavourful coffee. Coffee is after all the seed of a fruit. From then on, we began to work at a gradual pace, turning up the brightness a little, season after season. Today we can proudly craft a coffee with notes of lemon meringue, strawberry or passionfruit and find people on all sides of the counter are learning and developing their pallets.