Why did you need to hide under a blanket like object when taking pictures using an old school camera?
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Basically, your head isn’t fat enough.
The optical viewfinder on professional cameras (including SLRs/DLSRs and medium-/large-format view cameras) uses a ground glass panel to show a preview of what will be captured by the camera.
On SLRs/DSLRs, the rubber eyecup and your eye socket blocks light from coming into the back of viewfinder, leaving only the light coming in from the front via the lens.
View cameras project onto a much larger surface, so the curtain is needed to block light coming from the rear around your head. Without it, you’d barely be able to see the image on the viewfinder if you had a bright scene above or behind you. Also, the larger the surface, the fainter the image becomes since more light is spread over a wider area.
(Unless your view camera has a separate viewfinder, you probably have to replace the viewfinding screen with the actual film/imaging plate, which only opens to the front side when mounted. So it’s unlikely that you’d have your head under the blanket while shooting the shot. On a (D)SLR, the internal mirror flips out of the way, allowing the image to reach the film/sensor instead of reflecting toward the viewfinder—the mirror should also prevent stray light coming in through the viewfinder while the film/sensor is exposed.)
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