A Distorted View

Of course using interesting lighting, compositions, different points of views, and different "rules" or known techniques (also a photographers personal techniques) while shooting pictures makes them artistic and draws attention. It also makes the media of photography very dynamic, diverse, and different. These details are things that make photographers' works their own; the way they portray scenes and objects through a picture really creates their own style. Usually at some point, a trend appears. A trend of techniques used in photographs that a photographer beings to use frequently. It's almost like a trademark if you think about it, or maybe a signature. Basically, it's what makes a photographers work stand out the way they want it to while ensuring that it is their own, and it gives off the feelings, thoughts, and anything they wanted the viewer to know about their work.

There are many other ways to really give an image a new, refreshing, and interesting look. Using different types of lenses is a huge influence on the composition of a picture as well as the feelings and mood it gives off. I'll talk about a few different types of lenses and what they do.

One of the most popular (and my personal favorite) lens is a fisheye.

There are two types of fisheye lenses:

• Circular lens: it has a 180° field of view, sometimes more, and it creates a circular, strongly distorted image in the center of the picture (Zurek)
• Full-Frame lens: it has a slightly less than 180° field of view and it creates an image that covers the full frame and with much less distortion (Zurek)

Circular Fisheye Lens (Photo from sigmaphoto.com)





Full-Frame Fisheye Lens (Photo found through Google)



This type of lens would be useful for many different compositions. Sport and action shots would look really cool with the distortion it creates. It would also give landscapes a very different and unique look as well, especially if it's with an aerial perspective. A fisheye lens is really helpful when taking panoramic or interior shots; in confined spaces this lens enables a photographer to get the entire view, not just a portion of it like a regular lens. This also means it would take less photographs of a scene to create a panoramic image (multiple pictures that show a large scene). 

Wide Angle Lens (Photo found through Google)

Another lens is called a wide angle lens. This lens has the "capability to stretch perspective"; this means that with a wide angle lens, it seems that the distance between objects in the photo has extended (objects that are not so distant could appear too far away) and the proportion of objects dramatically increases (an object close to the camera looks enormous while those that are farther away nearly disappear) (Zolin). This is created because the point of view is at around 55° across the widest part ("Using Wide...") A wide angle lens is useful if you want to really emphasize an object and create a dramatic image. It is also good for enclosed, confined spaces because it can give the impression that it is roomy and not-so-cramped.

These are only two of many lenses that a photographer can use to create a unique look to their work. Lenses are a very important and useful tool that can give a picture a completely different feel.

References

"Using Wide Angle Lenses." Cambridge in Colour. Cambridge in Colour, n.d. Web. 26 Feb. 2012.

Zolin, Roman. "Wide Angle Lens." Artificial Rainbow. Roman R. Zolin Photography, Aug. 2005. Web. 26 Feb. 2012.

Zurek, Piotr. "What Can A Fisheye Lens Be Useful For?" Photography. Stack Exchange, 1 Aug. 2010. Web. 26 Feb. 2012.

Fellow Photography Bloggers!

Since this blog is for my English 112 course, naturally I'll have to write a paper at some point rather than just blogging. For my final analysis paper, from what I understand, I need to choose a few fellow photography bloggers to include. I have found a couple of bloggers that I've been checking out and following rather frequently. They all involve photography, but all of their blogs are different. The material they cover, the way they present and talk about their posts, and the flow or their style are all different.

The first and most influential blogger I've come across is Steve Borichevsky. His blog is titled "Shooting my Universe" that he describes "shows the way I see the world. You will see life in North America’s oldest working fishing port, wildlife photography, meet other artists and generally see some pretty good, unpretentious photography." I enjoy looking at his nearly daily posts that always include lovely pictures of animals, beautiful scenery, or interesting places along with descriptions, explanations, and basically lessons of his techniques and ways he got the pictures. I find it very informative and interesting!

Another photography blogger I found is Terrance Lam with his blog entitled "Frontal Lobbings." His blog has more than just photography though; it includes information about graphic design, social media, and marketing. The writer says that he has worked for some major communication companies including CBC and the New York Times. I enjoy reading his posts because I can learn from them, not just about photography, but these other topics as well.

Finally, "The Travel Photographer" has also been an influence, mainly because his blog is what made me discover the idea of using photography as my blog topic for my class. The writer is Tewfic El-Sawy and he blogs about expeditions, documented photographs from different cultures, and sometimes just information about cameras or other photography utensils. I love reading his posts including information about other cultures and countries.

All of these blogs are composed of different materials written in different styles. However, they all appeal to me and capture my attention enough to follow them and look forward to reading their next posts.

You Can Be

 

Thank you to my best friend, Erika, for being my model for most of my assignments throughout high school! Reflections and Motion was the assignment for this print. It was a windy day and originally, I wanted to try to capture motion with her hair blowing in the wind with her looking upwards towards the sky. I thought the light, white clouds against her dark, brown hair would contrast well and look pleasant when I worked with the photograph in the dark room. You're probably looking at the picture and asking, "what happened, because that doesn't look like that at all.."

Unfortunately, it didn't capture motion like I wanted it to. So I decided to try something with reflections. I gave her my sunglasses and tried getting some sort of landscape shot in the reflection of the lenses, but it didn't really capture my attention; it was just a pretty picture. Then I noticed the shirt that she was wearing; it was captivating and interesting. It was colorful and the words all had different fonts and it really drew my attention. That's when I got the idea of this picture. I wanted the first few words on the shirt to be visible, and then I wanted the reflection of the glasses to reveal more of the words that weren't visible to the viewer.

Honestly, I don't consider this very well composed at all. There are many things that I wish I could change about it to really make it how I envisioned it at first. My feet are visible in the reflection of the glasses, which is something I feel takes away from the photo. The shirt isn't as visible as I would like it to be in the reflection, also. That was an important element of what I wanted to include in this picture, and it didn't come out the way I'd hoped. In face, several picture from that roll didn't come out the way I wanted, but that's how you learn.

That's the beauty of being a photographer. You learn from your work. You realize what you need to fix and alter next time to create the impression you want.

(Another) Inspiration

In a previous post, I explained my love for the artist David Hockney. Due to a recent assignment in my photography course, I've discovered a new favorite artist. I should actually say photographer. All of his work is photographic and it's all so well composed. His name is Melvin Sokolsky. When he was only ten, he used his father's box camera, mimicking his father's techniques and actions. His real career started when he was 21, photographing for editorial and advertising purposes; he worked for Harper's Bazaar for which he produced his first collection of work named The Bubble Series (Politanoff). This was one of his most popular series portraying models floating in a bubble over areas in Paris. Another popular series was his "Fly" collection.

Something that really makes Sokolsky different from well-known photographers and artists is that he was never formally trained. At the age of 13, he took countless trips to New York's museums, discovering, devouring, and researching images and artists he found interesting (Schwartz). He found a passion for something so young. It's obvious he was serious about it since he went through so much trouble trying to master photography's history and his attempt to learn new things at such a young age.

This passion led him down the road to success. He has done hundreds of shoots for several magazines worldwide since Harper's Bazaar. He has such a wide range of media as well. Since 2000, he has picked up digital photography, opening so many doors to new and fresh compositions for him. He also has some cinematography experience with a motion picture he called "Motion" from the 70's.

Here is his official website with all of his work and here is a picture of one of my favorite pieces by him. It's actually from his flying collection.

Photograph courtesy of Melvin Sokolsky

References
Politanoff, Evelyne. "Melvin Sokolsky: Fashion in a Bubble". Huff Post: Arts. The Internet Newspaper: News Blogs Video Community, 1 Aug. 2011. Web. 12 Feb. 2012.
Schwartz, Barry. "Melvin Sokolsky: A Specific Palette". PhotoMedia: People and Places. PhotoMedia Mag., 4 Mar. 2010. Web. 12 Feb. 2012.

ABC's and 123's

This is probably the hardest picture I worked with in the dark room. Considering the negative I had to work with to get this photo, this is pretty well developed. My negative for this picture was underexposed. This means it was not exposed to light long enough which made the picture come out dark. Overexposed negatives have been exposed to light too long which makes a picture come out light. When either of these happens, it makes a negative difficult to develop nicely in the dark room.

This gets a little tricky to explain in depth, but I'm going to try. When a negative is underexposed, the image on the negative appears light; when working with that light negative in the enlarger, the image will appear dark. This is because it is easy for light to pass through a light negative so the paper is exposed to more light per second. When a negative is overexposed, the image on the negative appears dark since the picture is actually really bright.

What made this picture so difficult was that the dark background was underexposed (received too little light making the picture dark) and the lighter parts in the front like the bed comforter and the baby's skin were overexposed (received too much light making the picture light). So my darks were extremely dark and my lights were extremely light. So how did I even the tone out?

There are two techniques called dodging and burning. Dodging is when you block part of the photo paper for a few seconds while it is being exposed so it isn't exposed as long as the other part. Burning is the exact opposite; you would only expose part of the picture that you wanted to be darker for a few seconds. In this case, I dodged the darks of the image while I burned the lights so the darks would be lighter and the lights would be darker. Hopefully you can follow that...

I must have gone through at least five or six tries before I got a decent image. Although it was tricky, it was still fun to use the different techniques and keep trying different things. I also love this image because I just like the composition. I feel like I captured the moment well, or at least for how I was envisioning it. The baby in the picture is my little cousin, Nicholas. This picture is almost two years old now, but he's still the funniest, most amusing little boy I've ever met. :)

Inside the Darkroom

I figured some knowledge of the procedure of creating negatives and prints would be a good topic to cover, since it's something I have to go through every time I want to create something and all of my photos go through this process. There are many different ways to develop film and prints, but I'm just going to explain my process.


The First Part: Developing Film

(From Kip Praslowicz)

The first step is to open the roll of film. Using a bottle cap opener is the easiest way to do this. Then you cut off the leader, the first few inches of the film. The trickiest part to the process is putting the film onto a reel (picture to the left). This reel is plastic, but there are also metal ones. In my opinion, these are much easier than the metal ones.

 All you have to do is slide the film in and twist the sides of the reel and it will feed the negatives onto the reel. That doesn't seem very hard, but doing it in complete darkness makes it a little challenging until you get used to it. You have to do all of this in the dark because the negatives can not be exposed to light. After the film is reeled, you put it in a developing tank and close it, sealing it from the light. At this point you can begin the chemical process.

First is the developer; this brings out the silver halides in the negatives making each image visible. To stop the developing process, stop bath is used to neutralized the developer. The next chemical is fixer; this makes the image permanent by "fixing" the image onto the film. After the fixer, the film can be exposed to light. It goes through a water wash and then usually it is run through a chemical called photo-flo. This is just a soapy coating that protects the film from dust. After this they can be dried and you have your negatives.

The Second Part: Developing Prints

(From Wikipedia)

This is a very basic diagram of an enlarger, the machine that is used to create prints in the darkroom. A small strip of negatives is placed in the film carrier. The film carrier is inserted into the enlarger. The enlarger head houses the light bulb. When you turn the enlarger on, the light comes on and the image from the negative appears on the easel. Usually there is a coarse focusing knob and a fine focusing knob to focus the picture. Picking a contrast filter would be the next step. Contrast filters are almost always needed in order to really make a black and white image look good. They exaggerate, reduce, or eliminate light in order to create different tones in the picture.

Obviously you need photo paper in order to make a picture; there are many different kinds of photo paper, it just depends on the photographers preference. Photo paper is light sensitive which means it can't be exposed to light. However, darkrooms generally have safe lights which are just opaque red light bulbs. The light that is given off by this type of bulb does not expose the paper.

Before making the picture, you need to create a test strip. This is just a strip of photo paper that you expose to the light for different periods of time in order to figure out what time will make the picture look the best. The longer the light-sensitive paper is exposed, the darker the image will be. After making a test strip, you have to put the paper through a chemical process to develop it. It's very similar to the chemical process for developing film. It includes developer, water wash, fixer, water wash, perma-wash, and a final water wash.

Once the photographer decides on a time, they place a piece of photo paper on the easel and set the timer. They turn it on and it should go off automatically. Then they put it through the chemical process and dry it! Then they have a print!

It may seem confusing, especially when you don't know all of the terms and chemicals. However, after experience, it becomes a simple routine. It's a timely process and you need patience, but at the same time, for me it is fun and exciting to do all of this.