Academic Shoot Preview

The Story:

Several students gather around a pole, holding hands - a sign of connection, of continuity.  They bow their heads in prayer, for those who believe in it.  The others bow their heads in respect.

Action and Emotion:

The boy is in the middle of administering a noogie to the teacher - who looks amused and completely done at the same time.  The girl is halting her work with the papers in her hands to laugh at them.  The picture generally gives off a sense of amusement and happiness.

Filling the Frame:

The picture is generally very busy, but instead of making the photo look cluttered, it give the photo a personality.  There are the students with their blue bags, handing the food to the homeless.  There are the homeless, holding the buckets out to gratefully accept it.  There are people in the back (homeless, probably), but enough out of focus to add to the photo instead of mess it up.  The very background shows that they're in some sort of lot or street, near trees.

PART TWO:

I chose the photo called "Third Time's a Charm."  Two guys are in the middle of a bear hug on a field.  The face of the hugging guys that you can see is smiling widely - pure elation, victory.  The crowd in the background are cheering happily, clapping, yelling.

1).  I picked this photo because I like the mood, and it makes me, somehow, feel the same as them - which is extremely happy.  It's a good photo, too - great focus, great background.

2).  One rule of photography that this photo shows prominently is the Rule of Thirds.  The two guys are in the left-ish side of the frame, leaving room to see the cheering crowd behind them.

"Finally..."

1).  I could take a photo like the one I described above at a football or soccer game, where people would hug in elation when they won, or scored.  The second photo on the blog could be taken in a classroom with a particularly fun teacher.

2).  I think an orchestra room would be interesting to take pictures in.  Maybe something fun like art. Mr. Flick's English class, too - he makes his students laugh a lot (at least for my class), which would make a good picture if it's taken well enough.

3).  I'll try to focus a little more on the background and how it's affecting the picture.  I'll also try to focus on the guidelines of photography, to make them more interesting or better in quality.  Also, I'll try and focus on the mood of the photo - I'd like to make someone feel the way I did when I looked at the photo of the guys hugging on the field.

Photo Manipulation and Ethics

1A.  Many different photographers attempt to alter their photos to how they would like them to be, instead of what was really happening as they were taking the picture.  One photographer took out all of the female members of a council and photoshopped them to be men; another added a missile to a picture when the real one misfired and didn't launch.  Photoshopping pictures can get (and often does get) people fired from their jobs with their newspapers or magazines.

1B.  In my opinion, this type of photoshop is extremely unethical.  One of them stands out in particular:  the one where the women are photoshopped out of a council and replaced by men.  It's very insulting.  Journalistic photos should represent the facts of what happened on the event, not your own opinions.

2A.

I find this photo to be the most unethical photoshop.  It's insulting to Oprah, and the many other women that have seen it.  It also says something about the opinions of the person that photoshopped it:  they seem to think that Oprah's body isn't thin enough to be on the front of a magazine, or that a woman cannot be beautiful without an Ann Margaret body.

3A.   

In this photo, the pyramids were photoshopped closer together in order to fit the vertical frame of the National Geographic cover.  I still find it unethical, but it's not as bad as the others.  It doesn't represent the photographer's separate opinion, and it's not particularly offensive (to me).

Great Black and White Photographers, Part Two

Ansel Easton Adams was born on February 20th, 1902 in San Francisco, California.  When he was four years old, an earthquake knocked him to the ground and broke his nose, leaving him, forevermore, with a somewhat disfigured nose.  He pursued music at a young age (around twelve) by teaching himself how to play the piano.  His intended pursuit as a career had, indeed, been to play the piano, though he eventually gave it up for photography.

      Adams, having grown up around, had a great fondness for nature.  He joined the Sierra Club, which was prudent in his early success as a photographer.  He had taken pictures and they had been published, and he soon realized that he could make a living off of the money he had gotten from them.  His fame rose in the 1930's, and it continued to rise.  He wrote many books, such as The Camera, The Print, The Negative, and many more.  After many years of success in this department, he died in Monterey, California on April 22nd, 1984.

Sources:
http://www.anseladams.com/ansel-adams-information/ansel-adams-biography/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ansel_Adams

Post-Shoot Reflection

1).  I had trouble trying to think about both the prompts and the rules of photography at the same time. A lot of the pictures I intended for one prompt ended up going into a different one.

2).  The technical aspect I found myself thinking about the most was the focus.  If the focus is off on a picture, the picture ends up being generally bad.  The camera usually focuses by itself, so I didn't have to do anything specifically to do it correctly.  Half-pressing while taking a picture (or before, however you look at it) is pretty much instinct for me, so I usually don't have to think about doing that, but looking at the focus while taking the picture is probably the one thing I focus on most.

3).  If I could do the assignment again, I'd worry a little less about the rules of photography.  Looking back on pictures I've taken before, I realized that I had a lot of them in my head already without knowing the labels for them.  Worrying about the rules of photography at the same time as the prompts was unneeded, added pressure.

4).  I'm not really sure what I would do the same - there were a lot of bad things I did within my fifteen minutes (such as over worrying).  I would search for prompts in the same way, though - studying my surroundings and seeing what reminded me of them.

5).  Done...

6).  The prompt "happy" was a lot of fun.  The other ones, though, I wouldn't want to do again.  "Bowie" is uninteresting, and it's easy to take terrible pictures for that one (such as taking random pictures of anything with the word "Bowie" in it).  "Metal" was hard, yet easy, at the same time.  There is metal everywhere, but most of it is very dull and uninteresting, so it's hard to take a good/interesting picture of it.  "Square" was too simple, and the same as "Bowie."  It's too easy to take a really bad picture of "square."


http://bobbittaab01.blogspot.com/

The "metal" photo was pretty creative, and the blurriness somehow fit the picture.  "Happy" had nice lines, because the railings drew attention to the subject of the photo.  The other two were plain and could've used a change in angle to make the photo more interesting.

Promt Shoot

Happy:

Simplicity:  It's just Maria, and the background is far enough away that it doesn't distract from her.

Framing:  The trees (and even that bothersome metal pole) are leading the viewer's eyes to Jadon.

Metal:

Lines:  The metal on this chair is arranged in appealing diagonal lines, and the angle of the photo is such that the lines look almost like they never end.

Bowie:

(To me, the most memorable thing about Bowie is the giant tree.)

Framing:  This wasn't really an intention, but this guy is being framed by the branches of the giant tree.

Square:

Merger:

This is a merger because Mikayla's head combines with the pole behind her, and it bothers me that her right hand is the only thing that's in front of the giant pole that's to her side.

This is a merger because the people behind Jadon distract from him.  One is directly behind him, and it just..looks bad.

Her face is cut off.  That's all I need to say.

Avoiding Mergers

Framing

This is definitely "framing" because the man is being framed by what remains of the building the photographer is shooting from.

Balance

This is..probably..balance because, even though there's a lot going on in the picture, it's all the same thing, and it's all evened out throughout the span of the photo.

Lines

This is definitely lines because I find these horizontal lines in the photo appealing.  If they were just boards without lines, or they were vertical, I'm pretty sure the picture would be less appealing.

Rule of Thirds

I'd say this is definitely Rule of Thirds.  The building is on the right side of the picture, allowing the smoke more room to show in the picture, and a little of the foreground.

Simplicity

This is definitely simplicity because the background doesn't distract from the subject of the picture.  It's the simple, peaceful skyline of New York against this...tragedy.

The Camera

1.)  When a tiny hole is created in the wall of a completely dark room, the outside image is projected (though upside-down) on the opposite wall.  This is the "camera obscura" effect (Latin for "dark room").  The first camera.

2).  In the 17th century, the invention of the modern camera came one step closer when Isaac Newton and Christian Huygens perfected the understand of optics and lens for eyeglasses.

3).  The modern camera was born when Niepce created "film" in order to create the first successful photograph.  (It's now a glass lens, a dark box, and film!)

4).  What the modern digital camera and Niepce's camera have in common:  Light passes through the lens, into the camera, and still results in a photograph.

5).  Digital cameras use an electronic sensor called a CCD in order to capture photographs.  The photos are stored in reusable computer memory devices.  Modern cameras are now less expensive and more environmentally friendly.

6).  The difference between auto-mode and program mode:  In auto-mode, the camera itself controls the flash, exposure, and focus so that the photographer can focus on taking the image and not the exposure calculations.  In program mode, you can usually control flash and a few other camera settings.

7).  Portrait mode is used for blurring out the background of an image.

8).  Sports mode is used to freeze motion.  It goes to the fasted possible shutter speed possible.

9).  Half-press gives you time to keep the camera focused and explore the composition of the scene.  The full-press response is faster.

10).  This symbol (jagged downward arrow with a line through it) means "flash disabled."  The mood of the photograph can sometimes be more dramatic when you use natural lighting.

11).  This symbol (jagged downward arrow) means "auto-flash."  Auto-flash is enabled by default.  If the camera thinks the image needs more light, it will automatically fire.

12).  The picture is washed out when it's exposed to too much light.

13).  If there's not enough light in a picture, it becomes too dark (which makes it look bad, obviously).

14).  A "stop" is a relative measurement of light.

15).  If there are two suns instead of one, the number of "stops" raised is one (because there is twice as much light).

16).  If there are four suns, the number of "stops" raised is two (because's it's twice as much as two).

17).  A longer shutter speed equals more light.

18).  A shorter shutter speed equals less light.

19).  The aperture controls light in a similar way to the human eye's pupil.

20).  You can increase the amount of light by opening the aperture.

Ansel Adams:
Wildnerness Hike

Robert Doisneau:
Cyclo-Cross in Gentilly

Lee Friedlander:

Nina Szarkowski

First Day Photos

One of my teammates, Jadon.

I chose this because I like the sky in the background.  It's a rare thing, in our state, for it to be overcast (though it was still really hot outside).  In my opinion, the angle is cool.  I took it from the bottom of the Pit while he was at the top.  Jadon is, maybe, a little too off-center--I don't like the fact that some of his arm is cut off, but I took it while he wasn't paying attention.  I also chose this one to bother Jadon :)

A living thing.

To remember my first day.

I chose this photo because I think it fits the prompt "a photo to remember your first day."  The words "welcome back" indicate it's the first day, or close to it.  I think it has good color, too, and I like, for some reason, that there's a random hand in the bottom left helping to keep the poster up.  It also has pretty good quality.

Free choice.