Exercise 5: Subject in Different Positions in the Frame

Yesterday my wife and I were out for a bit of shopping and as we followed the directions suggested by my mother, we passed down a two-lane road rolling through some beautifully manicured countryside, including a couple of horse farms.  We stopped at one where the animals were out near the road to look and to take a few photos.

Exercise 4: Fitting the Frame to the Subject

I wasn’t planning to shoot this assignment at a hospital, but since arriving in the US three days ago there hasn’t been much time for work.   My father had to be admitted to the ER yesterday for a non-fatal condition.  Several family members were in attendance and while we waited for the doctor and for tests I slipped out with my camera for a walk and found a lovely park on the hospital grounds.

Review: Ragnar Axelsson and Last Days of the Arctic

British Airways boasts over 100 hours of on-demand television programs and movies.  Even so, on this week’s Dubai-London-Atlanta flights there wasn’t much on offer.  In fact the only thing worth watching was a one hour documentary on the people of the Arctic as seen through the work of news photographer Ragnar Axelsson.  

Exercise 3: Focus at Different Apertures

This exercise is similar to the last in exploring how aperture affects focus.  I haven't yet been able to figure out the physics, but the result is this - the smaller the aperture (the larger the f-stop), the more clearly in focus will be objects at near and far depths.

I set out to demonstrate this yesterday evening in a walk around my neighborhood. I was planning to shoot a row of cars.  In fact I did shoot a row of cars.  But I also found something unusual that demonstrates the effect better than the car photos, bands of neon tubing wrapped around a column, which I shot with my body against the column, camera point up.

Aspiration

http://www.whattheduck.net/

Review: Colberg, Photography After Photography?, 2012

Painting erupted once its burden of depiction was lifted. Maybe as photographers we can do our own lifting, realizing what it means, for example, to say that every photograph has already been taken. Seen in that sense, photography could maybe be the first medium to move forward because it has made itself obsolete, at least to some extent. 

Now that we’ve done all that stuff that you can see in history-of-photography books, now that we’ve become obsessed with re-creating that past over and over again - how can we turn around, to look at and move into the future? 

Joerg Colberg
Photography After Photography?

This is a question that comes back to me from time to time – what do my photographs mean in a world where there are trillions of images, with millions more being taken each day?  If everyone has a camera, what does it mean to be a photographer?   Colberg seems to be concerned primarily with discovering a new technique, but I think the way forward, if there is such a thing, and the answer to my own question, is intention.  Why make photos?   Colberg sees digital techniques replicating old forms as hopelessly nostalgic for the very reason that the intention behind such photos is sentimental.  There’s no real need to communicate anything except – look what I can do!

His analogy to jazz may point to a related problem.  That particular form of music has for the past few decades been open to only a very small circle of musicians and listeners.  It is now irrelevant to the vast majority of human beings, as well as the vast majority of humans who listen to music regularly.  There are a number of reasons for this, but part of the problem is the musicians themselves, many of whom seem unable to meet the general public halfway.  They want to play jazz as they like it.  And that’s fine.  But what then does finding a way forward mean?  A way forward for whom?  For what purpose?  What if you invent a new form, but no one’s there to listen? 

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Review: Clarke, The Photograph, 1997

At the OCA forums, more than a few students complained about the academic density of this text.  Even some of the reviews at Amazon complained about the opacity of the language.   I was expecting the worst.  But having just finished the first chapter I can say that the reviewers are right – and wrong. 

Exercise 2: Focus with a set aperture

Wherever we turn the attention of our eye we find objects in focus.   While you are looking at these words, try bringing your attention to things on either side of the screen.  You are aware of their presence, maybe their shapes and colors, but they are not in focus.  Now look at something across the room and notice that the things close to you fall out of focus.

In this respect, your camera functions much the same as your eye when set at low apertures.  It tends to focus on objects at one distance, but not more than one.  (At high apertures you can achieve with your camera something you cannot with your eye, focusing on everything within the frame.)  The object of this assignment is to demonstrate the camera's focusing ability, to note how to change the area of focus with a fixed aperture, and to investigate the relative area of focus. 

Exercise 1: Focal Length and Angle of View

The assignment was to set up the camera, mark the spot from which photos would be taken, and to then shoot three photos of the same scene (if using a lens with adjustable focal length, as I am):  one at either extreme (for me, 18mm and 55mm), and the other at whichever length best replicated the image seen with the naked eye.  

Then have the three photos printed, return with prints in hand to the spot marked, hold up the photos, and notice how close or how far they have to be held from the eye in order that the photo represents the size of the objects viewed with the naked eye. 

I didn’t understand this exercise until I saw this student’s blog.  

Then I got it:  how does the lens affect what you are seeing? 

The Exposure Triangle: Aperture, Shutter Speed, ISO

Course author Michael Freeman reminds us that “right from the start” we should familiarize ourselves with the following basic concepts.  This shouldn’t be hard to do, as all three photography classes I’ve taken spent a great deal of time talking about just these things.

Getting to Know Your Camera 2: Sensor, lens, and focal length

Before getting to the exercises in the coursebook, there is a section called Getting to Know Your Camera, in which course author Michael Freeman suggests sitting down with camera and manual and reviewing all your features and functions.  This seems like a reasonable idea, except that many of the features and functions of the camera can't be explored until you get out and use them.  Having a look through the manual, though, is useful insofar as you then know where to look when you encounter a problem. (Speaking of manuals, I've got three:  Nikon's, Thom Hogan's, and the Blue Crane reference card.)

The exercise I included in my previous post seems like a more reasonable approach to familiarizing yourself with your tech.  I want to extend that here to include the issue of focal length, which Freeman addresses separately.

Full Frame 35mm, and Nikon D5100 sensor size in red.  
Photo:  KenRockwell.com

Getting to Know Your Camera 1: Nikon D5100 Features Inventory

When I did my Better Photo course a couple of months ago, the first assignment, and a very useful one, was sitting down with the camera and manual and finding out exactly what I have on hand.  The check  list below was suggested by the instructor (Peter Burian).

Photo:  whitegadget.com

My History of Photography

The first thing I remember about cameras is that my father had one.   In fact he had several during his life, including what I believe was an 8mm movie camera.  He shot family holidays or church and school events.   Other people around me had cameras, but I wasn’t curious.  

In fact, I didn’t have my own camera until I was 27 years old.  I bought a point-and-shoot Vivitar before leaving for Japan in the summer of 1988.   Once there I took the equivalent of my father’s snapshots and made prints to send back home to illustrate letters about my life in Japan.  Otherwise, I wasn’t really interested in playing with the camera.  I gave that Vivitar to a student in the early 00’s after I went digital.  That purchase changed my relationship to the camera.  I could take as many photos as I wanted without regard to developing costs, and share as many as I wanted without regard to printing. 

Another turning point came on a trip to Sri Lanka.  On a sunset walk along the Lanka seashore, I managed to take the Galle fort in silhouette against the evening sky.  I did this using the camera’s preset features for capturing images in low light.  When I saw the result on my computer a week later, I had my first inkling of the possibility of capturing arresting images, and confirmation that by fiddling with the controls I could produce more interesting results.

The Box

The box, as I have seen it referred to at OCA forums, arrived yesterday. Nice paper packaging, as you can see, and well designed materials, as befits a college of arts.  If this represents the extra ₤150 for overseas students, then OCA is gouging. 

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Ways of Seeing

I was 11 years old when this documentary series aired in 1972.  I never even heard of it until today, when I ran across a mention of it from a fellow student posting at the OCA forums.  For those that might want some background, have a look here.  Much of what Berger discusses doesn't seem particularly new, though it may have been when the series was produced.  Still, he makes valuable points about how we view art.  Perhaps his most fundamental assumption is that images are like words, which can be used in different ways to elicit different feelings or behaviors.  Advertisers and promoters are widely aware of this.  (See Adam Curtis' documentaries for more powerful evidence of this.)  Consumers typically are not, and Berger's ambition with this project seems to be raising awareness, in particular with regards to what he sees as the pseudo religious air surrounding high art.  He performs a number of interesting experiments, including juxtaposing clips of a painting with clips of dancing girls and a firing squad execution to illustrate how context shapes meaning.   He finishes the first episode with a reading from an art critic whose work seems to be struggling to justify itself, followed by a visit with school children who respond without affectation.  I think Berger would agree with Suzuki: In beginner's mind we have many possibilities, but in expert mind there is not much possibility.