Texture as a photographic concept is defined as the quality of an object, referring to the variances in tone, depth, colour and shape.

James Welling is a photographer who did a selection of photos of crumpled paper. The images have a strange heavenly effect to them because the highlights are glowing and slightly blown out. The paper looks simultaneously flat and textured – a contrast. They also have a high amount of contrast which creates more texture in the paper. The photos almost look like they could be a birds eye view of an alien landscape.

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Shutter speed refers to how long the shutter is open for which exposes the sensor to light for more or less time depending of the shutter speed. 1/250 or higher is ideal for shooting action shots when you want the motion to be captured still. The lens can also be opened for seconds at a time – on a standard camera up to 30 seconds. This is ideal for very low light situations where you have a tripod at hand. In the diagram below it is demonstrated how the different shutter speed affects how movement looks in cameras. Sometimes you will want to capture very fast motion as a blur in order to show the speed – to do this you will have to use a lower shutter speed and try to keep the camera still so that only the motion is blurred.

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Examples of high shutter speed

These photos are brilliant examples of a very high shutter speed = the way I can tell the shutterspeed is high (probably 1/1000 or higher is because part of the world that is normally moving is now completely stull – a snapshot of reality.

Examples of low shutter speed

On the left is a beautiful example of a very low shutterspeed – they likel had to use a tripod to keep the camera still for an extended period of time – overnight for example. Keeping the camera open and using the B setting allows you to keep the shutter open for as long as you want – exposing the sensor to light for a very long period of time – causing these star trails. On the right is another example of a low shutter speed – the camera was probably open for a quarter of a second (1/4) while the person stood up. This created a blurred motion effect.

A photographer who uses shutter speed to her artistic advantage

Francesca Woodman uses shutter speed to create nostalgic, ghostly self portraits, often using strange positions and a large amount of motion blur, in weird, dirty looking rooms. Her photos have an eerie, sad message, and her photos sadly seem to tell of her fading away before she eventually ended her own life at 23

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My Attempt #1

To achieve this effect of the ball floating in the middle of the tree,, I used a fairly high shutter speed – 1/500 this means the sensor was only exposed to light for one five hundredth of a second – freezing the ball. I edited it in post in LrC and cropped the ball so it is on the top left rule of thirds cross point – I also turned down the highlights and added grain and haziness to create a film effect

My Attempt #2

To achieve this effect the camera was moving at the same rate as the subject, so the subject is the only thing in focus while the background has motion blur. In lightroom classic I changed it to black and white, and changed the contrast up a lot, also adding grain. This all together gave the photo a very candid effect.

This is the contact sheet of all the photos we took. Most of the photos of people dodging the camera turned out really unflattering, and the sky wasn’t blue enough for the ball photos to look at all visually pleasing. But out of all of them I got a few I like which are above.

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Photoshoot 2 – Studio

During the process of learning Lightroom classic I learnt how to flag images as picks and rejects using SHIFT + P/X to select my favourite images from the bunch. Below are the photos that I flagged as picks.

The aperture controls the amount of light hitting the sensor. It is measured in f-stop and typically ranges from f/1.8 to f/22 (f/1.8 being a very large aperture and f/22 being a very small aperture – imagine a large hole like a bottle top for f/1.8 versus a pinprick for f/22). The depth of field is much higher when more light is let in, so f/1.8 has the shallowest depth of field and therefore more background/foreground blur (depending on focus point). The opposite being a great depth of field at f/16 – f/22 has generally everything in focus. Depth of field and aperture link in directly with each other – aperture is the number you control based on the scene and the effect you want – and the depth of field is what is produced based on that number (also the level of exposure in the image.)

Above is the canon camera simulator this is a low aperture photo I have taken – to use the large aperture which lets lots of light in I had to use a higher shutter speed – (1/250 or higher is typically good for action photography) and a lower ISO. This large aperture creates a narrow depth of field and only the plane and a few marbles are in sharp focus – in my opinion this creates a higher quality effect.

This has a medium aperture which means the image still has a narrow depth of field but the image is not as blurred.

This is a very high aperture photo which means it has a very large depth of field and the whole image is in focus.

(FOCAL LENGTH AND FOCUSING)

Focal length is the length is the distance between the pole of the mirror and the focal point of the mirror. A higher focal length leads to a ‘flatter’ image. 50mm focal length is ideal for portraiture photography because it replicates the human eye and is therefore the most flattering – but a lower photo length leads to a wider image. The focussing ring allows you to change what is in focus in the image. You adjust it until either the whole image is blurred (Uta Barth) or the section you want in focus is sharp. There is also autofocus which is another setting where the camera focus’ on what it in the centre when you half press the shutter button.

PHOTOGRAPHERS WHO USE INTERESTING APERTURE AND MANUAL FOCUS

Uta Barth is a photographer that has a very unique style and generally takes photos of out of focus scenes. It is very abstract. She clearly uses the focus ring to force the camera out of focus which creates a cool effect. She is a contemporary German-American photographer who explores optical illusions, visual perception and non-place. She emerged in the late 1980s and brought light to the viewers visual attention within the photography frame. She takes photos of surreal landscapes and roads, in a deliberately blurred, dreamy way. Her works are exhibited internationally for their unique style and aesthetic look.

Ralph Eugene Meatyard is a photographer that has a similar style of work to Uta Barth but this set of images called “Zen Twigs” he made sure to keep one twig in focus in the foreground. This creates a sense that the branch is the most important thing in the image and creates a cool effect.

Saul Leiter was a photographer who was formerly an artist and then discovered photography. He uses lots of unusual framing devices in his images like windows and signs to draw our eyes to a large section of blur and draw our eyes to a splash of colour.

MY PHOTOSHOOT

Overall, aperture is a very important part of making a photo look good – and knowing how to use it is key to the photographic process.

ISO is the number that refers to the sensitivity of the sensor – the higher the number, the more sensitive the sensor, but, along with a higher sensitivity, there is also a reduce in quality, or an increase in grain. Grain is the sandy effect over an image that is synonymous with film photography – it can be used artistically though, it creates a vintage effect and paired with some good editing can add a certain emotion to an image. ISO ranges from a very low 50, to a standard (highest quality) 100, all the way to the most sensitive (on the majority of cameras) being around 6400. With the invention of digital photography, ISO is now something you can change on the camera – it used to be that the roll of film you chose had a set ISO (this is because the film is the equivalent of the modern the sensor.)

As you can see, the first image is 100 ISO, the second image is 800, and the final image is 6400 – and with each bump in ISO the amount of grain increases, indirectly proportional to the quality. The amount of light doesn’t change in these because I adjusted the shutter speed for each ISO change.

Camera Obscura.

The main concept behind ‘Camera Obscura’ (latin for dark chamber) is a device used (first conceptualised in the 5^th Century (BCE). The camera obscura projects an inverted image of the outside scene onto the (pitch black) rooms surface through a pinprick hole (or lens). After the discovery of this, scientists were intrigued and attempted to find ways to ‘Fix the Shadows’ (create a permanent fixture of the image. In the 16^th century artists like Leonardo Da Vinci used this camera – for purposes like studying light and perspective – and versions of the camera obscura were engineered to become portable. – creating the first ‘camera’

Nicephore Niepce.

Nicephore Niepce created the worlds first permanent photograph using the camera obscura, and a pewter plate coated in bitumen of Judea – Bitumen hardened when it was exposed to light and the unexposed areas were washed away.

Louis Daguerre

Louis Daguerre invented the daguerreotype – the first public photographic process. The daguerreotype produces very detailed images on a polished, silver plated copper sheet. He created this by collaborating with Niepce, a pioneer, but after he died, Daguerre continued to refine their ideas – leading to the Daguerrotype. The daguerreotype could not be reproduced but its quality and details were unmatched. The daguerreotype process involved exposing a coated copper plate to iodine vapor to make it light sensitive, the developing it with mercury vapor – then fixing the shadows with a salt solution. This became widely popular for portraits due to its detail and short exposure times – the daguerreotype dominated the photography market until new breakthroughs were discovered.

Henry Fox Talbot

Talbot had a scientific background in chemistry which directly influenced his experiments. Talbot played a crucial role in the development of early photography. (working around the same time as Louis Daguerre). Invented the calotype process, which is one of the first photographic processes to create negatives. This allows for multiple prints from one negative – a MAJOR development. Some would say this fixed, and multiplied the shadows. The calotype process involves paper painted with silver chloride. His first book ‘The Pencil of Nature’ was made with photo prints inside it – demonstrating the practical uses for photography – this probably played a key role in the development of photography because it showed entrepreneurs the business potential – putting money into the industry.

Richard Maddox

Maddox was a scientist and amateur photographer who invented the gelatine dry plate because he was worried about the different chemicals used in other methods of photography. The gelatine dry plate replaced the wet collodion process which allowed for greater flexibility because it eliminated the need to do all the work from coating and developing on site. Instead the dry plates could be stored and used later which greatly reduced the amount of equipment required on the scene. The dry plate used gelatine to suspend silver bromide on a glass plate. Maddox’s invention made photography a lot more accessible to amateurs which gave incentive to make more dry plates. The dry plate was a decent step towards the development of film.

George Eastman + Kodak Brownie.

George Eastman was the founder of Kodak – the company that revolutionised and commercialised early photography. Taking a photo was now a product you can buy. By simplifying the product with the use of his newly invented roll film  -George Eastman managed to create the Kodak Brownie – the camera with the slogan “You press the button, we do the rest”. This was a revolutionary step in the right direction for photography – the roll film was able to be produced because it was on flexible plastic instead of glass – making it miles more compact. The Brownie cost only $1 and really popularizes photography among the masses. Eastman also was a key player in the industrialisation of film because he saw the business potential. Kodak was also a key player of the invention of colour photography while under Eastman’s ownership – this was due to their invention of Kodachrome film which is not the standard for colour film photography. Overall Eastman was the start of consumer photography – it was no longer a hobby for the rich or the ones with loads of time – it was cheap, easy and not very time consuming.

Digital Photography

In the modern age – digital is king, it has completely taken over. Film photography is seen as a hobby in and of itself and is increasingly more expensive due to factories closing down and sales reducing. The digital camera was invented by Steven Sasson at Kodak in 1975. The technology used was a CCD which was essentially a sensor that converts light into digital signals. In the 80s the digital camera improved continually because sensors were becoming more and more sensitive and sophisticated however most cameras actually weren’t fully digital and used analog video technology. In the 90s digital cameras were becoming more commercial because the camera companies were releasing cameras that used memory cards which was much more practical.. The invention of the DSLR in the late 90s further boosted the industry because of being able to change the lenses and a much larger image quality. Following this, point and shoot cameras became more popular because they allowed regular consumers to make memories without having to learn manual settings and having a large cameras all the time.

This is the general timeline of photography – from super basic methods of recording real life scenes, to the highly advanced and refined DSLR cameras we live with daily now.

Aaron Siskind was born on December 3rd 1904, he was an editor, American teacher and photographer who is mostly known for his beautiful innovations in abstract photography. He received his first camera as a wedding gift in 1929. He used film. He takes super graphic photos of hyper-textured walls, peeling paint, rusty things, elements of writing on old machinery and signs and more. His photos are hyper detailed and have a very high contrast. I love his abstract photos and aspire to take photos like him. I love how they all have a matching style and have a strange, nostalgic feeling attached to them.