Nonja the Orangutan

photo source link


Nonja the "Orangutan has learned how to take a photograph with a simple camera now has around 70,000 fans on the social networking website facebook." link BBC

Facebook page

Ape photographer pioneer, Coco the gorilla. I always mention the famous gorilla in my classes particularly discussing the simplicity and ease of modern cameras, and the idea that everybody is a photographer. Nonja may enter the fray when discussing the photographic term "chimping."

Photography TImeline

Photo by Eadweard Muybridge

Timeline of Photography Technology

Paul Nicklen

Nature Photographer Paul Nicklen on
photographing leopard seals.
See story and photos here.

Photograph by Paul Nicklen, National Geographic

Food for Thought

Vanishing Coast: A Photography Exhibition by Michael Barrientos

21 November – 2 December, 2009

Admission Free

Exhibition Hours: Daily: 9:00 – 12:00/14:00 – 17:00

Associação Moçambicano de Fotografia (AMF)
618 Avenida Julius Nyerere
(Across the Street from the Avenida Hotel)
Maputo, Mozambique

for more information see: vanishingcoast.info

Photo Essays & Picture Stories

We had our long-lost final class this week about picture stories and photo essays. A picture story is a group of photographs that has a beginning, middle, and end. A photo essay is a group of themed group of photographs that is stronger as a group that as individual pictures. We looked at several of my own projects including personal family examples: a picture story of my first child's birth, and a photo essay of portraits of my little boy at different places around the United States. In examples from my professional work, we looked at a picture story I did on homeless people in Florida who went from living on the street to getting their own home; we saw a photo essay of different Elvis impersonators.

For the quintessential photo essay, we examined several stories from photographer W. Eugene Smith who is the father of the genre. Some stories we looked at included: Spanish Village, Country Doctor, Nurse Midwife, Pittsburgh and MInamata. His work can be found at both the Magnum website and on Google who has a library of classic LIFE Magazine photographs online now. It's a wonderful place to spend time looking at great photography.

I recapped some of the things we talked about such as framing, layering, and light. But, most importantly, I spoke again about physically moving yourself. You can think of yourself as they predator and your subject as the prey and circle them or it, as the case may be. Stand up on a chair, get down low on the ground, try different perspectives: just move. You may find a great picture by simply moving or getting closer and paying attention.

Finally, I shared my project on the Maputo coastline with you. I will be exhibiting it at the Associação Moçambicana de Fotografia from November 21 – December 2. For details about the show, you can go to the website at: vanishingcoast.info.

Despite my assertion that W. Eugene Smith's Pittsburgh project has "never been published," it is more accurate to say that it was never published in its entirety as he envisioned it. Read about it here.

"The Pittsburgh story has never been published in any form approaching his book-length intentions. The most complete version, in his own layout, comprising 88 photographs covering 37 pages, was published in 1959 Photography Annual. Smith considered it a failure."

BBC has a wonderful documentary about Gene Smith's work in Wales on YouTube. See it here.

The Best Camera Is The One That's With You

Chase Jarvis, a guy who's a good enough photographer that Nikon asked him to advance test the Nikon D90, just put out a photo-book called "The Best Camera Is The One That's With You". He only used an iPhone.

"The Best Camera is the One That's WIth You."

click for book summary

Alfred Steiglitz: The Steerage

How to Hold a Camera

Pixels Schmixels

Photo by Michal DanielIn Your Face: Big Pix, Few Pixels

By Claire O'Neill

New iPhones have three. Most point-and-shoot digital cameras have about 10. The Canon 5D Mark II has a ridiculous 21.1. Megapixels, that is. So imagine what 0.3 megapixels look like. (Here's a hint: pretty terrible.) That's what inspired Michal Daniel to use a camera of that size. While everyone else was shopping around for the highest quality camera, he was hunting for the worst... continue here at NPR.

Spirit Photography: Digital Manipulation

Manipulation in photography is nothing new; Photoshop and digital photography just makes it much easier, faster and less detectable.

Awkward Family Photos: a Note on Portraits

Sorry to everybody that I've been out so long dealing with my health issues. Just to let everyone know that I'm thinking of you and still have our last meeting where we talked about portraits in mind, here's a website to take a look at mostly to get an idea of things to avoid in your approach to group shots or portraits you take unless, of course, it is your intention to make photos like this. The photography here is highly enjoyable but not in the same way that Sebastião Salgado's or Annie Leibowitz are: AwkwardFamilyPhotos.com.

More About Light

History of Photography

Light! Week Four

This week we examined how light affects photography. We began by looking at painters such as Caravaggio, Rembrandt and Vermeer and the way they used light for a number of effects: to give their work depth and dimension, to bring out color and texture, for accentuate drama, to indicate important subjects or aspects of paintings, and for simple aesthetic value. We looked at a number of photographers beginning with David Alan Harvey, Steve McCurry, W. Eugene Smith, and Alex Webb.

In our discussion of light we looked at the results of different types of daylight such as "golden time," the first two and last two ours of lighting when the sunlight is directional bringing out colors and textures of subjects which is an optimal time to photograph. We looked at the harsh effect of midday afternoon sun which can bring hard shadows. We also saw the soft diffused look of light on a cloudy or overcast days and how it can be used for a pleasing effect in portraiture.

Our focus was mainly on natural light, that is available light from the sun as opposed to unnatural indoor lights from lightbulbs which can give different effects such as cold green or blue tint for fluorescents or a warm golden color from tungsten.

We also talked about the use of flash and looked at a number of results of "direct flash" with examples of work from Weegee, Andy Warhol, and the familiar overpowering flash photography of the paparazzi. I also briefly ranted about my pet peeve at concerts when people use flash photography for an impossible photo only to get the well-lit backs of other audience members' heads.

Composition Resourses

Photo Composition

Uploaded by Jack-Jeffrey on WiZiQ Tutorials

Week Three: Composition

Photo by Tom Ang/via BBC

In our last meeting, we looked at basic photographic composition and discussed various fundamentals such as the rule of thirds, avoiding mergers, leading lines and framing.

Photographers we looked at were Susan Meiselas, David Alan Harvey, Alex Webb, and an extended examination of work from Henri Cartier-Bresson from where the term "decisive moment" was coined.

You are encouraged to click on this link to go back to one of my older posts on composition which includes extensive links and resources as does the sidebar menu.

Lenses: Wide Angle v. Telephoto

Depth of Field

Photography Tutorial (with Robert Vasquez)

The Fundamentals of Photography

Ten Photgraphy Tips

Lighting, Equipment, and Location

Robert Vasquez is more entertaining and has better hair than I do, and clearly and concisely explains the basics of photography to boot.

Photography Books

Recommendations for a beginners photography book which touches on the technical points we discussed was requested in our last class. As noted, there are a hundreds of choices that typically give the same information. The best suggestions would be to visit a book store and look through a number of photography books to see which author's voice or style is best for you. (A book store employee can direct you to the right section–they're typically in the arts section but often in hobbies as well). Since your choices are limited in Maputo, particularly if you are looking for a book in English, you might try South Africa if you should visit. The internet is also a possibility.

Although it's been nearly 20 years since my last purchase of this type of book, the one that I bought and still have is called Photography (Fourth Edition) by Barbara London Upton and John Upton. The book still exists although the former husband and wife team is its 9th edition and has an additional author: Photography (9th Edition) by Barbara London, Jim Stone and John Upton. It's a book I still own and have referred to over the years and is widely used by colleges and universities.

Also, as mentioned, a number of great resources have been listed on this website that touch on a variety of technical aspects of photography both for beginners and advanced photographers. You are encouraged to explore the entries in this web log and the links on the right sidebar. In this case the section called It's Elementary: The Basics might be quite helpful.

Illustration from Photograpy, Upton & Upton

Eugene Richards (4 min. 13 sec.)

Exposure

In our class this week, we continued our discussion about exposure, that is, f-stops, or apertures, and shutter speeds, These are the elements along with your film speed that are at play in properly recording light through your camera to create an image.

Other topics we touched on were camera shake which is a common result for blurry pictures resulting from a shutter speed too slow to hand hold a camera. The ways to solve the problem are through decreasing the amount of movement by using a higher shutter speed or a tripod. Panning is an purposeful blurring effect that you can get through setting your camera at a slow shutter speed and following a moving subject. You can also create an effect with a slow shutter speed and a tripod when subjects such as traffic or a ferris wheel are moving and your camera is steady.

Along with f-stops, we talked about depth of field which mean "the amount in focus." Depth of field is increased and decreased with the size of your aperture (f-stop). It can be used to your benefit as we saw in some of our class photos from Monika and Marco who had their subject in focus with the distracting background blurred. An aperture of f2.8 would have only a small portion of a scene in focus, while an aperture of f16 would have nearly the entire scene in focus (link). This was the idea behind Ansel Adams's storied Club F64 which loved the high f-stop that would get them photographs with tremendous sharpness.

We looked at different lenses and the effect each of them makes. Wide angle lenses such as a 24 mm, will allow you to record more of a scene and let you photograph a slower shutter speeds. A normal lense such as a 35 mm or 50 mm see without much distortion and are close to what humans see. A telephoto lense such as a 200 mm will bring a subject closer to you and compresses the scene. A macro lense will allow you to focus on and photograph subjects very closely.

One point that I made which I will continue to make is physically moving around to look and explore. While you can use large aperture such as f4 to blur out a background, you can simply move to find a less distracting or "cleaner" background.

Photographers we looked at this week were Dorothea Lange (Migrant Mother), Steve McCurry (Afghan Girl), Joe Rosenthal, Mary Ellen Mark, and portions of project from Eugene Richards.
Links:

Exposure Wheel (graphic)
F-stops/Apertures (graphic)
Shutter Speeds (animated illustration)

Ansel Adams

Week One: Photo HIstory

For our first class, we went through the history of photography and the development of the modern-day camera. We looked at the first photograph made by Joseph Niépce in 1826, the first photo of a person by Louis Daguerre, and the first portrait by Henry Fox Talbot and discussed each of these men's individual contribution to photography: the photographic process itself; the Daguerreotype; and the calotype or forefather to the modern negative.

We looked at the evolution of cameras starting with camera obscura (see video below): the view camera and the cumbersome process used all photographers until 1879 with the invention of dry plate negatives and later with the release of the Kodak box camera in 1888, then the Brownie in 1900; handheld large-format cameras like the Speed Graphic favored by photographers like Weegee and Margaret Bourke White; the Leica, a 35mm rangefinder camera favored by Henri Cartier-Bresson; Polaroids; the Single Lense Reflex or SLR; digital cameras; cell phone cameras; and the modern day advanced digital cameras.

As I noted, with the examples of famous modern-day "amateur" photograpsh from Janis Krums (Miracle on the Hudson or Tweet Heard Around the World) and more recently the photographs of a low-flying plane in New York below by Jim Brown) that put many in the city on edge.

We looked at United States Civil War-era photographer Matthew Brady and at Ansel Adams, and were introduced briefly to f-stops, or apertures, and shutter speeds.

Links
Daguerreotype Gallery

Photo by Jim Brown
The White House Photo

The Ultimate Amateur

Lartigue: Part 2
Lartigue: Part 3
Lartigue: Part 4

Rick Sammon's Photo Tips

Rick Sammon's Top Ten Photography Tips

Photo Sharing/Photo Storage

Photo Sharing Site Links:
Flickr
Webshots
Picasa
Photobucket
Slide
Smugmug
Deviant Art

Vanity Fair Cover Shoot

Photography Field Trip

click to enlarge flyer
On Saturday morning, March 7, we will have an photo field trip to the Jardim Zoologico de Maputo from 8:00 a.m. until 12 noon. We will photograph from 8:00 a.m. until 10 and will return to edit and critique some of our photographs and a pot luck brunch.

Please bring: 1 metical entrance fee plus 5 meticais for parking; a camera; a card reader or cords to download pictures from your camera to a computer; a dish, snack or drink to share.


The Maputo Zoo is located on Avenida de Moçambique (EN1) just past the overpass. An easy way to get there from the Sommerschield area is to take Av. Kenneth Kaunda past Av. Accordos de Lusaka (that's the street that takes you to the airport and Shoprite) going straight in the direction of Machava for approximately three kilometers. Take the offramp and make a right at the top on Av. de Moçambique. The Jardim Zoologico is to the immediate left past the overpass with a blue Vodacom wall. It is before a pair of petrol stations (Petromac and a BP) neighboring the Centro Hipico.

I will arrive at the zoo when it opens at 7:30 a.m. If you would like a ride or to follow me, please meet at my house by 7:00. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or concerns.

Links:
Google Map of the Jardim Zoologico de Maputo
Maputo Zoo Article
Maputo Zoo Photo Gallery

Week Six Review: Picture Packages

"I am convinced that the only way we ever really learn anything is by doing it." - David McCullough

Photo by W. Eugene Smith' Minamata

We wrapped up this week looking at picture stories and photo essays and how to make photographs that work better together as a group than individually. In the case of a picture story, it is a narrative group of photographs that has a distinctive beginning, middle and conclusion. On the other hand, a photo essay is one or more photos where the sum is greater than its individual parts.

The primary examples I used were my personal photographs: for a picture story, I showed the birth of my first child, and as an essay, I used a group of photographs that I made of my son at various locations around the United States. Although I showed a few of my photography projects that I did in my newspaper years, the point was that picture packages are something that can be done for personal photography whether a birth, birthday party, or vacation.

The final photographer we looked at was the storied W. Eugene Smith who is the godfather of the modern photo essay. We looked at some of his most famous stories including: Spanish Village; Country Doctor; Nurse Midwife, Pittsburgh and his powerful Minamata project.

In a parting note, I used the example of American historian David McCullough who, aside from being an author and television personality, is a talented watercolor painter. Speaking about his painting he said that painters like other artists, dancers and musicians improve by doing. You become a better pianist by playing. You become a better painter by painting. The key to becoming a better photographer is by taking many pictures.

Diane Arbus Biography

Part One

Diane Arbus: Part Two
Diane Arbus: Part Three
Diane Arbus: Part Four

James Nachtwey: War Photographer

Trailer (1 min: 10 seconds)

Film Clip:

Sebastião Salgado Documentary (In Spanish)

Sebastião Salgado: Workers (part 1)

Sebastião Salgado: Workers (part 2)

Sebastião Salgado: Workers (part 3)

Sebastião Salgado: Workers (part 4)

Sebastião Salgado: Workers (part 5)

Week Five: Moments and Portraits

"Penny Pictures" by Walker Evans
This week we discussed portraiture going back to one of the early and most popular uses of photography (look at your passport photo). In photo history portraiture in photography highlighted one of the distinct advantages of photography over painting. We talked about some ways to improve our portraits such as watching our background. Some ways that is done is by choosing a simple, non-distracting background such as that used by Steve McCurry in his Afghan Girl or Sebastião Salgado in many of his pictures we looked at. More than anything building a relationship with subjects and putting them at ease is the biggest factor to having a good portrait.

With most of they people we photograph, it is likely that we already know them and have a tremendous advantage as opposed to going up to a perfect stranger and gaining their trust. In the case of famed photographer Annie Liebovitz who has become as much as a celebrity as many of her star subjects, we talked about the debate about her work being overproduced with her assistants doing much of the labor. However, she has built strong friendships with many of these people over decades in some cases, and as is evident from many of her photographs with no studio lighting from her very early days at Rolling Stone magazine, her photographs of her family and particularly her famous photo of John Lennon and Yoko Ono before Lennon was killed, it is more about relationships, trust and how comfortable the person you are photograph is with you.




We also looked at "moments," taking a step back to Henri Cartier-Bresson's Decisive Moment where the peak of action is captured in a fraction of a second. As is the case with many of the types of portraits discussed, these candid situations are often best captured when your subject is comfortable, then they will be relaxed and able go on with their activity making it easier to photograph special moments in life. Finally we discussed the importance of watching the sidelines and paying attention to what is going on around. Looking for action and reaction away from the main subject is often make for more interesting pictures.

Some of the photographers we looked at this week were Diane Arbus, Sebastião Salgado, Mary Ellen Mark, Annie Leibovitz, James Nachtwey.

Annie Leibovitz Interview

(12 minutes 24 seconds)

Week Four: Light

"Light makes photography. Embrace light. Admire it. Love it. But above all, know light. Know it for all you are worth, and you will know the key to photography." –George Eastman, Eastman Kodak founder

We talked about the essence of photography this week: light. We looked at a number of examples of some of the various uses of available light, that is natural light, and had a short introduction into direct flash like the ones attached permanently to most point-and-shoot cameras and those that are affixed to the cameras of paparazzi shooters.

Some of the photographers that we looked at this week were Trent Parke, Paulo Peleigrin, Weegee, and Andy Warhol. We did a more in-depth study of David Alan Harvey, Steve McCurry and Alex Webb.

illustration by luminous-landscape.com

Links:
picturecorrect.com
fodors.com
photo.net

David Alan Harvey (in Portuguese)

Alex Webb

Alex Webb discusses his Istanbul project but look at his work and pay attention to his powerful composition and command of light.

Sam Abell: Composition and Layering

Photographic Composition

Photographic Composition

View more presentations from Alaa Sadik. (tags: photographic composition)

Week Three: Composition

This week we discussed photographic composition and looked at work from Henri Cartier-Bresson, the godfather of photojournalism who applied the lessons that he learned in his life as a painter to photography. Please refer to this comprehensive web post that I listed last October 8 on composition with a number of good tips and links.

Week Two Review

Photo by Eugene Richards from book Fat Baby
We started off this week reviewing apertures/F-stops and shutter speeds and how they along with film speed (or ISO setting) affect your exposure as well as depth of field. Depth of field means “the amount in focus.” The smaller the f-stop number is, the bigger the hole is. This simply means you let in more light. So and F 2.8 aperture setting lets in more light, however you have less depth of field or less in focus in this case.

Conversely, if you have a bigger number such as f 22 the hole or aperture is much smaller letting in much less light. But in this case, you will get much more depth of field, or more in focus. Remember Alfred Steiglitz’s F-64 Club. Film speeds or ISO settings on you digital cameras also affect your exposure.

We talked about the “Sunny 16 rule” which means that at an ISO of 100 at mid-day sun, an aperture of f16 will require a shutter speed of 125. So if you open up to f11, your shutter speed will become 250. I mentioned it sort of being like a scale and balancing out.

Our main focus for this class was lenses. We talked about fisheye lenses (8-20mm), wide-angle lenses(20-28 mm) , regular focal length lenses (35-50mm), telephoto lenses from 70 mm and up, and micro and macro lenses for those incredible close-ups.

Photographers that we mentioned were Steve McCurry who photographed the Afghan Girl, Mary Ellen Mark, W. Eugene Smith and talked extensively about Eugene Richards and his use of wide angle lenses to gain intimacy with his subjects. Famous photographs by Dorthea Lange, Joe Rosenthal, and Alfred Eisenstadt were shown.

More Shutter Speed, Apertures, and Depth of Field

Shutter Speed (2 minutes)

Apertures/F-Stops (1 1/2 minutes)

Depth of Field/The Amount in Focus (4 minutes)

Class 1: Cameras, Photo History and Exposure

Camera Obscura Demonstration

In our first meeting we went through the camera history from the camera obscura, view cameras, the speed graphic, Kodak's Brownie and the importance of amateur photographers, the breakthrough 35 mm Leica rangefinder used by Magnum founders Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa and George Rodger (Chim was the fourth founding member), to modern day SLRs, digital and cell phone cameras. We spoke about the now famous iPhone photo of a U.S. Airways jet on the Hudson by Janis Krums remembering the fact that is the person, not the camera that is taking the photograph.

Some of the significant people from photography history we discussed were Joseph Niépce who made the first photograph, Louis Daguerre and Henry Fox Talbot. We looked at work from the "first photojournalist" United States Civil War photographer Matthew Brady, and also viewed pictures from American Ansel Adams including his project on a Japanese Concentration Camp. Other photographers mentioned were Weegee and Gordon Parks.

Links for Lesson One:

Top 10 Incredible Firsts in Photography
The First Photograph Discussed (radio story)
Photography History Timeline


Shutter Speed & F-Stop/Aperture Video (2 minutes) We closed in a discussion about exposure, light metering, f-stops/apertures, shutter speed, and depth of field.

Plane Crash on the Hudson

Photo by Janis Krums
The amazing crash landing in New York was photographed by an amateur, Janis Krums of Sarasota, Florida, with an iPhone. His photograph has appeared in newspapers throughout the world. Hear an interview on the BBC or read about it here. He first posted his photograph on Twitter.

Garry Winogrand

Part 1

Part 2

Short Film

Robert Frank

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3