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