The Pin-Hole Camera Effect

Last night's forecast for today was rain. However, I woke up this morning around 6:30 to sunlight sneaking its way into the bedroom through the gaps in the drawn blinds on the east-facing window. Not quite ready to get up, I gazed over at the shadow the blinds were casting on the wall. After a few moments of still-kinda-sleeping-but-my-eyes-are-open-fugue, I realized that there was more light on the wall than should have been. Excitedly, I woke Ken up.

"Hey...look at the wall."
"Uh-huh."
"No, really, look. We've got a pin-hole camera of the sun coming up on the wall."
"Mmmm." And then I think he rolled over again.

This is what went on on my wall this morning.

There have been two times in my life I have tried to make a pin-hole camera. The first time I was five or six. I tried to do it with a shoebox like I had seen on "3-2-1 Contact" (a kid's show that aired in the afternoon). I gave up on it pretty quickly. The second time I made one using two index cards so I could watch a solar eclipse in 1993 or 1994 (this time it worked beautifully). I've never had the pin-hole camera effect just appear on my wall. It was pretty cool.