Photo Opening Reception at Associação Moçambicana de Fotografia.

Class One: Photo History and Intro to Exposure

In our first meeting we jumped into the history of photography starting off with KoKo the National Geographic cover gorilla and Nonja the orangutan in the Vienna Zoo at Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna, Austria, and established that the mechanics of photography is simple enough that an ape can do it with modern cameras.

It is not the camera who takes the picture, it is the photographer.

The evolution and development of cameras and photographic processes were looked at starting with the camera obscura, to the view camera, to the Kodak and Brownie consumer camera, to the large and medium formats like the Speed Graphic used by Weegee, to the Leica used by Cartier-Bresson and Robert Capa, to the modern day 35 mm Single Lens Reflex, and digital cameras.

We looked briefly at work from Ansel Adams including his Manzanar Project, and the work of Matthew Brady who was the first war photographer.

Finally we ended by starting on exposure looking at f-stops (also called apertures) and shutter speeds and looked at examples of overexposed (those with too much light) and underexposed (dark photos that did not get enough light exposure). F-stops as we discussed are the openings in the lens which let in a determined amount of light, while shutter speed is the time the shutter is open letting in light making an exposure.

Links:

Article: Daguerrotypes by Photographer Chuck Close
Camera Obscura
History of Photography Timeline.

Camera Obscura

Margaret Bourke-White

Joel Meyerowitz (Interview: 30 minutes)

Street Photographer Joei Meyerowitz, Visions and Images Series, Duke University Library Collection

Nick Nichols on Assignment

See how fun it is to photograph a wildlife assignment for National Geographic. Okay, it's not always that fun...bugs, chimp urine and charging elephants.

Edward Steichan

"I am no longer concerned with photography as an art form. I believe it is potentially the best medium for explaining man to himself and his fellow man.–Edward Steichan"

– after serving as an army photographer in World War I

Alfred Steiglitz: Pictorialism

Alfred Steiglitz was a groundbreaking defender of photography. Pictorialism was a movement in photography where photographers imitated painting. Steiglitz and others later used photography's strengths to their advantage.




Other contemporaries of Steiglitz like Paul Strand, Edward Weston, and Ansel Adams helped move photography into its own.

Joel Sartore: Endangered Animal Portraits

RARE from Joel Sartore on Vimeo.

Exposures: Landscape Photography History

Part One

Part Two

Part Three (Edward Weston)

Part Four (Ansel Adams)

Part Five (New Topographics/70s Landscapes)

Part Six (Urbanization)

Part Seven

Part Eight

Part Nine (end)

History of Photography

Historic Photographs

Photo Course: 8 April–13 May

No Photos Allowed in the United Kindom

Photograph at your own risk in the UK.
Link

Cheap Photographers

Antoin Sevruguin

Execute:Man being buried alive, 1870s - 1930s, by Antoin Sevruguin.

Antoin Sevruguin was originally a painter but became a photographer after the death of his father who was a diplomat. Most of his work was done in Persia. He has a powerful body of portraits and street scenes: click here for photos.