Reading #3: John Ingledew, Photography [Ch.4]

#3 John Ingledew, Photography [Ch.4]

The Reading #3 is a bit long like 59 pages in chapter 4, but there are some really good points that can enhance my skills in photography.

The part of ‘Control of the camera’ teaches us about lenses, focus, aperture, shutter speed, and exposure as whole. These elements are the core and basic learning to shoot, it is easy to understand but take times to master them.

Lens

The lens is simply the eye of the camera, it lands on the film or a digital chip and creates a photograph. Our naked eyes have a fixed range but the camera is adjustable through the interchangeable and zoom lens, which allow us to see in closer, wider and further way. A lens which causes light to converage in a short distance is said to have a short focal length. These lens have a wide angle of view. Noramlly wide-angle lenses used in a 35mm camera have focal-lengths of 24mm and 28mm.

Focus

Focus is a useful tool which allow photographer to choose whether to have some, all or no parts of a photograph in focus. The control of the focus is adjusted by turning the larger control ring of the lens. By rotating the focus ring clockwise, it allows us to see ditant object come into focus, when the ring is moved as far as it will go in this direction, the lens is then described as being set to ‘infinity’. And using the focus can create different level of depth of field, which I will cover it later.

Aperture

The aperture of the camera lens allows the photographer to control the amount of light enter the camera. The aperture ring is calibrated in ‘f numbers’. The higher the f number, the smaller the aperture opening. For instance, f22 is the smallest hole, which allows more light enter into the camera, f 2.8 the largerst, which allow less light enter into the camera.

 

Shutter speed

Shutter speed is how long that the camera will take the photo after you pressed the shutter. The number of shutter speeds are marked in seconds, 1 indicates 1 second, 2 indicates half a second and so on to 1000, which means 1/1000 of a second . Shutter speed can be used to adjust two main things – the light and movement. After adjusted the aperture, we can adjut shutter speed to control how long the camera to allow the amount of light enter to the camera. On the other hand, shutter speed play a key role to capture movement, it decides whether capture a moving object freeze or move. A fast shutter speed can freeze movement and a slow shutter speed can blur moving objects. Movement is visible at shutter speeds lower than 1/60 and movement stopped at shutter speeds faster tha 1/60.

   

Left: Quick moving object with fast shutter speed is able to freeze the movement in the air.

Right: Quick moving object with slower shutter speed, which makes the object blurred and the camera panned to follow the movement.

 

 

 

Slow shutter speed, which makes all moving cars blurred into lights and create another visual effects.

 

Exposure

With the use of aperture and shutter speed, they control exposure. Exposure is the amount of light a photographer allows to fall on the CCD or film. In order to set the correct exposure, adjust the aperture and shutter speed in combination can give photographer choices with regard to how correct exposures can be set. For instance, the same amount of light can fall on the film from having a small aperture coupled with a long shutter speed, as will fall from a wide aperture coupled with a very short shutter speed. For example. f22 at 1/15 can share the same exposure as f2.8 at 1/1000.

D.O.F. (Depth of Field)

Smaller apertures such as f22 and f16 have a larger depth of field, most of the object in the image will be in sharp focus. But those taken with a wide aperture such as f2.8 have a small or shallow depth of field, which allows smll part of the picture that has been focussed upon will be sharply defined.

 

 

 

Reading #2: Graham Clarke, The Photograph [Ch.2]

Introduction

This reading goes with the sub-title: ‘How do we read a photograph?’, it offer explanations of how do we not only look at the image but to read it as a text. The photograph achieves meaning through ‘photograph discourse’, it refers to a language of codes which involves its own grammar and syntax.

Meaning

The meaning of a photograph is perceived differently to different people, it depends on the reader’s belief, experience, cultural background, etc., these elements are known as part of a ‘practice of signification’. The ideology constructs meaning and reflects that meaning as a stamp of power and authority. A photograph is not simply a ‘mirror’ to reflect what it is, but the text itself encourage readers to engage with other codes and values, hence, it is said that the photograph is one of the most complex and most problematic forms of representation.

Photograph as an active role of a visual language

1. The photograph is itself the product of a photographer, as always. It is the reflection of a specific point of view, be it aesthetic, polemical, political, or ideological. To ‘take’ is an active action. It never be a passive, natural act.
2. It encodes in terms of what we shape and understand a three-dimensional world. Therefore, within a photograph, a two-dimensional world, it relates to a series of wider histories, aesthetic, cultural, and social reference.

Identical Twins (Arbus D., 1967)

 

• At first sight, reader might find themselves familiar with the theme ‘identical’, which clearly stands for identity
• The basic meaning is the sameness
• But what the image reflects is a meaning work not through similarity but through difference
• The more we look at the image, the more the merest detail assumes a larger resonance as an agent of identity.
• Recalls us to a consideration of the implicit complexity of the photographic message.
• Also we must be aware of the photographer as arbiter of meaning and namer of significance.

Roland Barthes has suggested an important distinction between relative meaning of different elements within a photographic frame, the difference between denotative and connotative. Denotative means any literal meaning or any significance of any element in the image, every literal detail of the image. Beyond these basic layer, the second level of meaning refers to connotative meaning. Connotation is ‘the imposition of second meaning on the photographic message proper’, it applies with the series of visual languages or codes which are themselves the reflection of a wider. underlying process of signification within the culture.

 

For instance, the denotative meaning of the above photo is tank, army, sand. These are the things that we can see in a literal level.  And  the connotative meaning is something more than the surface, connotation such as war, unity, disciplinary, death.

Reading #1: John Ingledew, Photography: Loading

This week we are going to do the reading of R1 John Ingledew, Photography: Loading and R2 Graham Clarke, The Photograph [Chapter 2]. I will summarise some of the key points of Reading #1 below.

R1: What is it about?

The first reading is Photography: Loading by John Ingledew, it is an introduction guide to people who just learn or interested in photography. It provides historical works which gives exploration and inspirations by creating and manipulating pictures.

‘Photographs have the power to evoke, inform and inspire. Photography is a democratic medium global, inexpensive and accessible’ This is the essence of photographs and that caught my eyes onto it. By looking at the example work ‘A Life in Pictures’  by Derek Dawson in 1992-2001, I recognize the power of photography. We are able to record our lives in photographs taken from birth to death, it allow us to treasure things and so we don’t lose anything again. Taking pictures in any events of our life can help us remember things and recall the either happiness or sadness moment at that period of time. On the other perspective of ‘power’, photograph can be seen as a tool or medium to sway public opinion and even impact explosively on government to cause real change. A same camera can create different means of expression, it can be simply a note-taker or offer a deeply personal means of expression. It all depends on who is the one holding the camera.  ‘Photography has image impact – a single image can say things beyond words, carrying meaning and feeling.’ – Vincent Lee, photographer.

How does film-based photography work?

Black and white: Silver is sensitive to sunlight – the more it gets, te blacker it becomes. Black and white photo works by harnessing this reaction. Film and paper are coated with tiny bits of silver; when they are then exposed to light, the silver darkens according to the amount of light that falls on it, the effects being amplified by the use of chemicals.

Colour: Film-based colour photography also make use of silver’s sensitivity to light, but it needs only three basic colours by mixing red, green and blue in order to recreate any particular shade of colour.

How does digital photography work?

It is made up of millions of pixels which form a believable image when our eyes merge them into continuous tones. Each pixel is a solid block of colour and it becomes visible when an image is greatly enlarged. Every single pixel’s individual colour is recorded as a number or digit, which allows to be edited or changed any of the pixels into alter colour, brightness and contrast.

Difference between the eye and the camera

• Human’s eyes are able to perceive three-dimensional depth (3D), whilst cameras are two-dimensional depth (2D). It only can be seen in 3D in stereoscopic photographs, and it has to be viewed with red and green ‘3D’ glasses.
• Camera offer a vision from zooming near to far, which our eyes cannot.
• The closet distance at which the human eye can focus is about 8 inches or 20cm, but the focus range of a camera lens has no lower limit.
• Our eyes adjust the contrasts of bright light and deep shade. The pupil of our eyes reacts instantly to maintain the level of light falling onto the retina, whereas the photographer must either manually or automatically vary the aperture of the camera to darken or brighten what he/she records.
• Cameras can capture an object by using exposures of fractions of a second or many second, minutes and even hours, whilst our eyes cannot.
• Our eyes only distinguish colour if there is sufficient light, but cameras can retain colour to a greater degree than our eyes in lower-light conditions.

Where has photography come from?

Over 500 years ago, people understood that a small hole in the wall of a darkened room could act like a lens and project image of the scene outside onto the opposite wall. This effect was named ‘camera obscura’, which means dark room and this is how the camera got its name.

The idea of lens came from ‘reading stones’, which is a segment of a glass sphere to magnify letters when placed against books. The earliest illustration of these glasses dates can be traced back to 1350.

The French lithogrpaher and inventor Joseph Nicephore Niepce proclaimed he created the first picture copied from nature in one summer’s day in 1826.

Shutters

Photographers recognized the difficulty of capping the lens for short amounts of time and so a ‘shutter’ device would be needed to shut the lens for fractions of a second. In 1872, the first shutters were fitted in front of the lens and a great example of illustrating the impact of shutter is given by Eadweard Muybridge, who took the movement of a horse with shutter speeds of around 1/500 of a second.

(Horse in motion, 1872)

Geroge Eastman

He is an inventor and industrialist who foresaw the commercial possibilities of photography and began manufacturing and marketing his photographic inventions on a massive scale. In 1888, Eastman launched the frist camera to use roll film, he christened his small handheld box camera which is known as the ‘Kodak’ camera. It then became a huge success and it became accessible to tens of millions of people and a new era of picture-taking began. ‘You press the button, we do the rest’

    

Inspirational Photos

This is the first week of photography lesson, honestly it is a bit tough for me to search some inspirational photographs. I love taking pictures but I have never learnt any of the techniques.

I have chosen some inspirational pictures which I found online. These photos varies from different ranges like portrait photographs to landscape.

The first one is the London Eye.

Second one shows a person taking person on a top of mountain, the photographer choose not to show the portrait’s face, but to highlight the breathtaking sky view in the background.

I love the third one most. This photos shows a baby is holding in its father’s arm. The photo is used in black and white color, I guess the photographer attempted not to distract audiences by other colours, and so it allows audiences to focus on the facial expression of both portraits. Although the photo is in black and white color, it still look warm, graceful, happy and full of love. The eye connection between the baby and father conveys more than words can do.

I like photos which have a deeper meaning behind or the photo itself can tell a strong story to audience. In the future, I may consider this as my direction of my final project.