the aperture controls the amount of light that is entering the lens, like the iris of your eye. This is measured in F-Stops for example F-Stop 22 would be tiny like a pinhole. Depth of Field is basically what is in focus in-front and behind in the image, so if you have a shallow depth of field make the background of the image blurry / not in focus. If the whole image is in focus than the Depth of field is large. This links to Aperture (e.g F-stop 8) as if you use a large aperture than you will have a shallow depth of field. Than if you use a small aperture (e.g F-stop 22) than you will have a large depth of field. From F16-F22 will mean that all the of the image will be in focus.
My Images
these images are from a canon camera simulator, and this was to experiment with how Aperture, ISO and Depth of field effect each other when taking an image.
Ralph Eugene Meatyard
Meatyard was an optician before he took up an interest in photography. He was a member of the Lexington Camera Club which lead him to pursue his interest in photography, Meatyard’s main genre of photography is abstract. With many of his images using motion blur and multiple exposures.
These images are combining abstract photography with portraiture photography whilst including aperture and depth of field.
These photos show how there is the main object in the image in focus at the front of the screen and the rest of the background is more blurred.
Saul Leiter
Leiter started out as a painter and then, found his inspiration of colour photography, his works began in the 1940s. Leiter focused mainly of colour theories but also different perspectives of framing the images, He created abstract compositions of everyday objects. Leiter had large areas of the images out of focus ,which draws your eyes to a particular area or pop of colour.
examples of images by Saul Leiter
Personally, I really like Saul Leiter’s work as I like that the main part of the image is not centred and all the pop of colour is something I personally like and look forward to trying something similar in the future.
My Images
contact sheet
Best Images Edited
I have chosen these images as the best of my aperture and depth of field images, either the background or the main object of the image is in focus or out of focus. Especially these images with the leaves are and interesting way to mix portraiture photography and depth of field.
Shutter speed is the amount of time that your camera is letting light in for. The longer that the shutter speed is open for the brighter that the image will be.
If the object or person you are photographing is moving, for example sport photography, you will need to use a high shutter speed, to be able to capture the moving object clearly. Whereas if you use a low shutter speed such as 1/30 the colours of your image will be richer and more light will have been allowed in.
Examples of high shutter speed images
you can tell these images have a high shutter speed as they are moving images but the movement looks still.
Examples of low shutter speed images
and these images are low shutter speed as it has a bit of motion blur on the image.
Francesca Woodman
Francesca Woodman is an example of a photographer who uses slow shutter speed. Many of Woodman’s images were taken in her parents farmhouse in the countryside of Florence Italy. The European art and culture of surrealist art, many photographers such as Man Ray and Claude Cahun have also influenced her work as you can their themes and styles in Woodman’s work.
In the topic of photography Woodman’s importance as an innovator really helped develop photography as during the 1970’s photography was still considered to be less important than painting or sculptures. Francesca Woodman helped pave the way for photography to explore more important themes such as identity, just like Cindy Sherman and Nan Goldin.
Image by Francesca Woodman
My Images
Contact sheet ( slow shutter speed )
Best Images Edited
these photos are good examples of a slow shutter speed as you get a clear sense of the motion blur that is occurring, which you can tell as part of the images are blurry as there is movement happening in the image.
I have made these images monochrome as I think you are able to see the motion blur better as well as making the images more dramatic.
Harold Edgerton
Harold Edgerton is a great example of fast shutter speed photography. Edgerton was born in Nebraska in 1903. The flash that Edgerton had used to create his most famous image of the bullet through the apple, was 1/100,000 of a second.
Many of his images have been featured in magazines such as “Life Magazines”, and when taking his multi-flash this strobe light could flash up to 120 times in a second. In 1934 Edgerton was appointed a professor of electrical engineering at MIT.
Harold Edgerton / MIT / 1964
My Images
contact sheet ( fast shutter speed)
Best Images Edited
these are some of my best images for fast shutter speed as you cant see any movement in the images. I particularly like the one of the yellow ball as the colour of the ball really compliments with the the colour of the tree. As well as the different tones that are on the ball from the shadows.
ISO
ISO is one of three main pillars of the photography triangle along with shutter speed and aperture. ISO refers to the light sensitivity of the camera, so the higher the ISO the higher the light sensitivity, So if you were shooting on a dark cloudy day you would want to use ISO 1600 or higher. The lower the ISO the less grainy / “noisy” the image will be, however sometimes grain on images is sometimes used for artistic design or dramatic effect. You want your ISO to be as low as possible whilst still freezing the action.
If you’re using a high ISO, in turn there is a possibility that the quality of your image can degrade.
Examples
Here are some examples of high and low ISO from my own images
These images have ISO that ranges from ISO 100 to ISO 3200
1928 is the midpoint between the invention of photography and our current digital age.
Camera Obscura
photography was created in 1839, in this same year a Frenchman ( Louis Daguerre ) and an Englishman ( Henry Fox Talbot ) announced that they had created a process that rivals photography called ‘Fixing the Shadows’. However the idea of photography had been around for far longer than this new idea called ‘Fixing The Shadows’ .
To create camera obscura you must be in a room and use some cloth or some other black fabric to cover up the windows and turn off all other light sources in the room then all you need to do is cut a tiny hole in the fabric you have used to cover the windows and that’s how you’ll get your image. Camera obscura shows how diverse photography can be, as you need darkness to see the light. The only issue they found when using camera obscura is that the images are upside down when you look through the camera. Many people enjoyed using camera obscura as it is completely natural and leaves many people dumbfounded.
Romanticism
The early invention of photography coincided with the era we now call the romanticism era. As many of the ideas and beliefs of romanticism greatly contributed to the early experimentations of photography, which has helped it become what it is today.
Chemical developments (early 1800s)
the break through for camera obscura came with the observation that certain chemicals are light sensitive. Such as silver salts and silver chloride. So these were used to create images, however they ran into issues when they realised they couldn’t stop the image from developing, so the image they wanted would over develop and turn black.
when they first started discovering using chemicals the first ever trial, Humphry Davy soaked a piece of leather with the chemicals and got a botanical specimen directly onto the leather and exposed it to sunlight, and that is when they saw a first image start to appear. This led into the marketable photographic process in 1839.
Dageurrotype
Louis Daguerre invented the dageurrotype process in 1837. To make a dageurrotype you need a sheet of copper that is plated with a thin coat of silver, this is then cleaned and polished to a mirror finish . Once it is sensitized it needs to be kept in a light proof container with iodine and bromine vapours, until the surface turns yellow. To develop the image you must place the plate over a source of heated mercury fumes until the images appears, this creates a milky white image. Now the image is fixed and is not developing any further.
Nicephorus Niepce
Was a French inventor and one of the earliest inventors of photography, who died on the 7th of March 1765. Niepce invented heliography, which is a technique that has created some of the oldest surviving products of a photo.
Joseph Nicephorus Niepce first experiments is uncertain, but they stemmed from his interest in lithography and the camera obscura. Niepce’s first images were captured on silver chloride-coated paper, which were particularly difficult to fix, later moving on to using Bitumen of Judea ( a light sensitive asphalt which is used in etching ) Niepce’s successful camera photography was between 1822 and 1827 and was rediscovered in 1952. In 1829 he partnered with Louis Daguerre to develop Physautotype, whoever after Niepce passed away Daguerre continued the research on his own. A few years later the Government ending up buying Daguerres proccess rewarding him and Niepce.
Henry Fox-Talbot
Henry Fox-Talbot is accomplished in all sorts of things, however drawing was one thing he could never master. Despite not being able to draw Henry decided he was destined to get the colourful 3-dimentional world onto a piece of paper, this is when the idea of camera obscura and chemistry came together.
George Eastman and Kodak
Originally Eastman was working as a bank teller, until he became interested in photography when he decided he wanted to document one of his trips. He ending up becoming more interested in photography than going on his vacation (which he never ended going on) Eastman revolutionised photography by miles, by now producing that we now even take for granted which is a roll of film.
A few years later after producing the roll of film Eastman used the same concept to create the first “amateur camera” called the Kodak camera. The word Kodak means nothing, this is a word he came across when playing with anagrams with his mother. The reason that he had chosen this word is because he enjoyed the fact it started with a K which was a strong and incisive letter. So he thought what better to way to sell a product than to have a name people are going to remember. As well as the fact the word has no alternate meanings.
The Kodak revolution turned the empire of photography into a republic. And the emblem of this revolution was the distinctive circular prints. The first generation of the amateur photographers were called the Kodak Fiends.
Digital Photography
1969 was the heart of digital photography. William Boyle and George Smith developed a device that they called a charged-couple device which ended up being given a common name of a CCD. It used a row of tiny metal-oxide-semiconductor capacitors to store infromation as electrical charges. This does the same function as the magentic tape in the older cameras.
Anna Atkins
Anna Atkins made her images with cyanotype photography. The first use of cyanotype photography was in 1843 and it was used it illustrate a book. This is the method of tracing shapes with light on photosensitive surfaces, and this has been an early repertoire of photography.
The cyanotype is a slow-reacting photographic printing formulation which is sensitive to ultraviolet and the blue light spectrum. It produces a blue monochrome print. To stop the developing of the chemicals you must use water to fix the image onto the paper.
My Cyanotype
We went outside and out either flowers or leaves that we would like to include on our cyanotype. we got the special cyanotype paper with the chemicals on it and placed our plant on top. to secure the plant to make sure it didn’t move in the wind of outside, we placed a piece of Perspexs on top of the plants and left them to sit for about 20 minutes in the sun. Then we fixed th eimages with water and here is my finshed product.
