What is it?

A shutter – is a device that allows light to pass for a determined period, exposing photographic film or a photosensitive digital sensor to light in order to capture a permanent image of a scene.

shutter speed – It’s the speed at which the shutter of the camera closes. A fast shutter speed creates a shorter exposure which is the amount of light the camera takes in and a slow shutter speed gives the photographer a longer exposure. 

Using different levels of shutterspeed we then did a shoot of our own where one person was taking the photo and the other moved around trying to avoid the camera. This meant the photogropher had to set their shutter speed depending on the model, as they were moving fast, to capture the focussed image.

JOHN BALDESSARI

John Baldessari was an American photographer known for his work featuring found photography and appropriated images. Initially a painter, he began to incorporate texts and photography into his canvases in the mid-1960s. In 1970 he began working in printmaking, film, video, installation, sculpture and photography. 

The three balls

One of his most recognised shoots involved photographing three balls being thrown into the air attempting to capture them in a straight line. In this shoot no two photographs are the same because of variables such as changes in wind speed and the natural lighting. Through this process, he captured a divide between the thought of an idea and its execution.

My attempt

Inspired by his collection called – Throwing Three Balls in the Air to Get a Straight Line – We tried to capture some similar images.

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Camera dodge game

To experiment with the effects of changing the shutterspeed we played a game where one person has the camera and the other tries to dodge the camera whilst the photographer attempts to capture them.

Here are the results from my recent studio shoot exploring the use of aperture to create different effects.

Here is a diagram to remind you of the effects that aperture creates:

In this shoot, we chose to show the results of using different apertures to take the same images:

The following images are in the same order of aperture (f5.6, f16, f36), but in these, the objects were arranged moving away from the camera, in order to show the clarity in aperture levels. This is drawing on the idea of lining up 22 eggs away from the camera, and by increasing aperture from lowest to highest, seeing an increase in the number of eggs that are in focus. Here we of course didn’t use eggs but instead the objects we were already photographing. You can see this effect was achieved as in the first image (with a low aperture) a low number of the objects are in focus, but in the final image (with a high aperture) all the objects are in focus.

When I first opened Lightroom Classic, I created a collection to put my photos inside. I made a sub-folder for the photographs we had taken in the studio, and began the process of editing.

Using the picker tool, I selected my best images that would be eligible for editing, ones with the least blurring, highest resolution, and good framing. The rest would be discarded as the set was obstructed by either someone else or the shutter when the shutter speed was set too high.

this is annoying

The photographs with the white flag in the top left were the ones that were kept, whilst the ones with the black flag were discarded.

These were the photos I was left with. My plan was to then experiment with editing to give them more colour and detail.

These were the three edited images I was left with. I increased the vibrance in each one to bring out the blue hue of the background, and messed mainly with the exposures and contrasts to create three similar pieces that could work as a tryptic.

During my GCSE’s I used Lightroom for my photography, so I’m familiar with the tools and layout of Lightroom Classic.

Aperture is the opening of the lens through which light passes to enter the camera, aperture can also be described as the adjustable lens opening that controls the amount of light allowed in the camera

What is aperture and how does it work?

Aperture affects the lighting in your picture. The larger the hole in the lens is, the brighter the image will be. While the smaller the hole, the darker the picture will be since it doesn’t let as much light in.

Aperture also affects depth of field. It affects how far the image is focused. For example, the image could be focused solely on the centre of the image or it could be focused on the whole image.

You are able to adjust aperture settings on your camera by turning the dial to the small ‘A’, then spinning the small wheel at the front of the camera.

Aperture experiments

This image has a low aperture since less light is showing through the image.

Meanwhile this image has higher aperture since more light is shown in the image.

Other experiments.

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Shutter speed is the speed the cameras shutter closes, the faster the shutters closes the less light exposer and the slower the shutters closes the more light exposer.

What is aperture?

 Aperture can be defined as the opening in a lens through which light passes to enter the camera. It is expressed in f-numbers like f/1.4, f/2, f/2.8 and so on to express the size of the lens opening, which can be controlled through the lens or the camera.

The aperture seems to be affecting the background and the focus. This leads to depth of field…

Depth of field

 Depth of field is how much of your image is in focus. In more technical terms, depth of field is the distance in an image where objects appear “acceptably in focus” or have a level of “acceptable sharpness.”

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John Baldessari

Baldessari was an American conceptual artist, he lived and worked in Santa Monica and Venice California. Baldessari’s unique ideas gave him the nickname ‘the father of conceptual art.

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Shutter Speed

Shutter Speed is the speed on which the camera’s shutter closes, a fast shutter means the photo is more focused and has a shorter exposure a shorter shutter means the photo has a longer exposure and is more blurry.

This photo has a fast shutter speed

Photos

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Shutter speed is the speed at which the shutter of the camera closes…. A fast shutter speed creates a shorter exposure the amount of light the camera takes in and a slow shutter speed gives the photographer a longer exposure. Here is a image I’ve found to describe shutter speed visually:

John Baldessari

To test shutter speed we used John Baldessari as inspiration. He showed how shutter speed makes a difference by throwing balls into the sky and trying to capture them in a certain position; for example:

We then used this as a ‘template’ and tried to experiment with shutter speed our selves, we did this two ways. The first way was like the image above (throwing balls into the air and photographing them). The second way was having someone fighting the camera to capture and show the blur or sharpness, this task is to show our undertanding of both sides of the scale.

My pictures:

Shutter speed affects an image as it controls how much light the camera takes in. A fast shutter speed will let less light in meaning the image will be sharper as it isn’t over exposed. If the shutter speed is slow it will let more light in to the camera making the image blurry and over exposed.

John Baldessari

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Photo games

in lesson time we played photo games to try using different shutter speeds. we would throw 3 balls in the air and try to capture them in line, we did this by making the shutter speed faster. Here is my attempt

The last picture was my best attempt as it captures the balls nearly perfectly alligned.

We also played a game using slow shutter speed to try capture action shots. one person would pretend to box the camera while the photographer tries to capture shots.