LIGHT KEEPER: (opposite) Two triple-lens magic lanterns from the 1800s; (above) Jack Judson in his restoration workshop with a project-in-process, a rare French science projector from the 1800s.

be walking, probably, into a town square somewhere The image could be small, or grow larger, and this in France, where we presume a lot of it began. was quite alarming to some people. They thought it was magic.

DD: What is a hurdy-gurdy?

JJ: The hurdy-gurdy is really a violin in a box, but instead of being stroked by a bow, it is stroked by a wheel that is turned with an outside crank. On the front of the box is a set of keys that can change the pitch and tone, to play music with it. He would play the hurdy-gurdy to attract attention. He might be invited into a home, or a church, where he would slide pictures painted on glass through this machine that was lit by a little oil lamp. It was basically a tin box with a lens at the front.

DD: The light of an oil lamp flickers. And it’s a yellowish light. JJ: It’s a terrible light. The next evolution, of course, was trying to improve the light — the amount of light — by adding, instead of one little wick, a bigger wick or two wicks, or three wicks, or four wicks. They were able to grind better lenses. Then, of course, they were using fire — that was about as far as you could go with burning oil or some kind of a liquid, burning agent.

DD: The lanternist was essentially a storyteller who had images to accompany his story. JJ: The magic lantern was very scary to people who had no education whatsoever. Frequently, they did these shows in total darkness, like in a crypt, which was very spooky, and they showed pictures of skeletons and devils. It just scared everybody like crazy. They might also do the projection from behind the screen. They would have a light-colored cloth, which they wet to make it more translucent.

DD: Some lanterns used a pair of lenses. JJ: They had a condenser lens, which is right at the front of the box with the light in it. That was either a single or double plano-convex large lens, which acted to focus the light from the source into a coherent path. It would pass directly through the image area on the slide, and then meet the projection lens out front, which you use to focus the image. That’s the normal configuration. That exists even to this day in the latest slide projector.

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