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Photography ClearlyExplained.com

clearlyexplained.com

ClearlyExplained.Com

Covering...

• What photography is, why photography is important,

• recents news and links,

• how to photograph,

• some history and the future of photography

What is photography?

Photography is the art of using light rays to form an image on a light sensitive material. Photography is often more than just taking a photo with a camera, it is about creating something that is aesthetically pleasing. Photography is about the entire process from finding the object to photograph, framing the photograph, processing the image and presenting the image.

 

The origin of the word Photography The word "photography" comes from two Greek words, photo- meaning light and graphy - meaning draw

Why is photography important and valuable?

Cultural reasons

for artisitics purposes, photography can be considered as a pure aesthetic art form that combines shapes forms inlcuding the interplay of light and shadow.

Society and photography-

Photography has an economic significance, especially in terms of the industry that is associated with the products and services. In addition there are copyright issues, body image, psychology and evoking a wide range of emotional responses.

Technological reasons

Photography has had a profound effect on new technological developments in terms of the kinds of equipment used in photography. In particular the advancement of digital technologies. It has impacted on storage of photographic images by the development of compression of digital image data such as the JPG format.

News about Photography

Google News search on photography

• News of Photography

Links to photography resources:

Australian sites:

• Centre for Contemporary Photography
• The Australian Institute of Professional Photography
• David Major Photography

US sites:

• New York Institute of Photography
• Eastman Photography Organisation
• Popular Photography and Imaging
• Taking great pictures with Kodak
• Photography tips

UK/Europe

• British Journal of Photography(subscriber only)

Photography equipment - Cameras
ClearlyExplained.Com

• Camera store - Digital Cameras
  Australia's largest online camera store.  Digital cameras, Video and SLR's

How is photography classified?

How is photography classified? The different types of photography.

Photography comes in a wide range of forms from Amateurs happily snapping pics of friends and family, Special Occasion photographers ie weddings, Sports Photography, Wildlife Photography. Fashion Photography.

Most photography is defined by the typical sorts of subjects of the photo. There are also some highly specialised types of photograpy that are often related to scientific study. For example Astrography (astronomical photography). Micrography (microscope photography). There are even types of photography that work with light we can't see such as Infra red and UV, ( IR is most common though).

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The type of lense has an effect also.

These swans for example were taken with a zoom lense, notice that the back ground water is unfocused also.

 

A macro lense allows you to focus on objects very close up. Do you notice a bee in the fine flower?

The aperture can open and close allowing more or less light through.

The greater the depth of field the more things are in focus regardless of how close they are to the camera.

Generally a small aperture allows more things to be in focus.

But remember a large aperture (small f-stop number) allows things close up to be in focus and things further away are blurred.

How to take photographs

What are the things you need to consider when taking photographs?

Equipment

• The type of camera - film or digital , the number of megapixels
• The types of lenses- low f-stop lenses are generally best, eg about f2.8

Settings

• The type of film - the ISO setting, the lower ISO the finer the grain.
• The type of light - low light, bright light. The white balance(mainly for digital cameras)

A useful reference is from photosecrets.com

Composing a photo is about getting an interesting form of balance that perhaps evokes something more from the viewer.

Depth of field is an important aspect of photography. This is about what is and is not in focus in the final printed image.

Maximum depth of field as in the left picture is when most of picture is in focus from the forground to the background.

Minimum depth of field is when only a small part of an image is in focus, ie a portrait of person with the person's face in focus but the background a bit blurred out. The blurred background is sometimes also called Bokeh see : Bokeh - wikipedia

How are different depths of fields achieved?

Depth of field is achieved by two main factors:

• The aperture of the camera
• The size , focal length of the lense

On an automatic camera, if you have a potrait function use this setting.

On a manual setting SLR camera , set the f-stop (at the front of the camera lense to 4.5 but adjust the speed ( this is often done automatically or suggested by the light meter reading inside the camera.

Some combined SLR automatic cameras have the f-stop change on a seperate button.

references:

• Depth of field: photoreview.com.au
• Freeman. M (1991) The complete guide to photography

What is the history of photography?

The history of photography really goes back to the time of the Greeks where Aristotle developed the Camera Obscura, a pin hole camera that first allowed the manipulation of light in a very simple way. Much of the history of photography is the history of Cameras and chemistry of film leading eventually to the digital era.

observing a solar eclipse by Camera Obscura, Reinerus Gemma-Frisius, 1544

Photonet provides a concise timeline of the development of photography

 

The Australian Centre for moving images provides quite a comprehensive review of the camera obscura, a fundamental basis of photography.

The Future of photography?

Photography is likely to have a very bright future on a number levels. In terms of new technologies and for the sheer number of photographs that will continue to be made from an almost infinite perspectives.

With increases in the storage capacities for digital images photography is become common place.

The further development of CCD systems are likely to improve and the number of megapixels may increase.

Perhaps the future of photography lies more in the types of subjects that are being photographed.

Photographing things that are normally not visible and making them visible. Slowing very high speed events so we can see them is another challenge for photography.