theWashik Photography

How to: Teach Yourself Photography

2010-04-18T11:37:00.000-07:00

Right, after handing out a load of advice on what camera to get (Canon; you owe me at least two) I thought I would elaborate on the next step. How to use the blasted thing. Now, as ever, there is one key thing to remember and a few obstacles or urban myths to quell. Firstly:

Photography is about light, not composition

That’s right, sorry Jan Arthus-Bertrand, it’s all about the light; natural, flash, fill, studio whatever. Light is king. Now the biggest obstacle to avoid when learning is that instinctive reaction to acquire knowledge by the world most logical method: the written word. The problem we have here is that

Most magazines are out there to sell cameras

Yep, they have a million adverts and reviews on new equipment but are scantily-clad when it comes to genuine advice. This is not particularly true for books (after all their revenue is generated from a single sale, and you already have the book in your hand) but books tend to be more functional that I, personally, dislike.

So, what to do… hmmm…

The funniest thing is, if you sit down for a second and think about it, you already have everything you need to learn about photography and they are:

Your camera
Your eyes
Your brain

and perhaps the understanding that, when it comes to photography (and as we have covered photography is about light, again sorry Jan) you control three things: the sensitivity (film or digital sensor), the aperture and the shutter. Now, just to make it really clear here:

Your camera knows how to take great photos, learn from it.

Loe and behold, all you need to do is point the camera, shoot and check. There’s a four step process you can use to introduce those three elements.

Step 1: Auto

In A (auto mode) point and shoot. If it takes a picture you like then look back at the settings it chose (menu screen EXIF data). This will tell you everything about it. No fuss.

Step 2: Program

In program you can change a couple of features of the camera, concentrate on the ISO (sensitivity) and let the camera do the rest. In P (program mode) point and shoot. Again check the good shots. No mess.

Step 3: A/S

Now we introduce the other two elements. In S (shutter priority mode) you change the shutter and it’ll use the aperture to sort the exposure, visa versa for A (aperture priority mode). Use S to try some cool long exposure effects (dark rooms, lights etc) and A for some cooler depth of field effects. Point, set, shoot, check.

…and we’re done! Now you should be about 6 months into trying all of the above and getting a bit bored. Boredom is good, it means you’re validated in trying something more. Whack it into M (manual mode) and point, set, shoot, check.

Note: If you’re not getting the time you want to take photos, or you’ve not got the conditions that you will be shooting in or you would like to see what others have done then. Well. You know about Flickr right? Yeah? Bottom right corner there’s a little hyperlink that says ‘more details’. There’s your EXIF for you.

How to Choose Your Digital Camera.

2010-04-18T11:17:00.000-07:00

Very often, we are often faced with dilemma of choosing THE right camera. Yes, the market today is saturated with different kinds of digital camera that we are often spoilt for choice!!

And, here are some pointers you may want to follow as you are looking to purchase a camera.

#1: When you are deciding on a digital camera to purchase, there are a few key considerations that you may want to take into account first. The first decision is in regards to your overall camera needs. You have to think of how often you will be using the camera and where you will be taking the majority of your pictures. Also, you need to think about how discriminating you are when it comes to things like picture composition and resolution.

#2: After you’ve established your basic picture taking needs, you can turn to price and size considerations next, since you know that these will severely limit your options a bit it will be worth it. Many online retailers offer services that are geared toward helping their customers balance camera needs with camera costs properly.

#3: Finally, when you have narrowed the pool down to only a few key choices, you will want to think about finer details such as megapixels and other camera features.

There are so many features that are out there that you can definitely find the perfect camera. Some come fully loaded with modern technology whereas others come with specific features.

All you really need to do is asses your needs and desires, and if need be, get the help of a professional to choose the perfect bit of equipment for your digital imaging. It’s that easy! :D

My favorite place to find good equipment is Radio Shack or the Future Shop. Best Buy is pretty good when it comes to prices as well as Staples. You can search online, and visit camera review websites. I find it to be extremely useful when I am looking for a good camera. Anw, what better way to know more about a camera than to hear from the users themselves!

Get the latest and comprehensive camera reviews here

Check out this website for the most up-to-date and comprehensive reviews that will not overwhelm you with technical terms that you do not understand.

Camera Batteries 101

2010-04-18T11:10:00.000-07:00

Power Sucking Camera Battery Features

Does your camera batteries seem to run out of power awfully quick? I used to have that same problem too but I’ve discovered some tricks you can use to save your battery power!

Here are the three features of digital cameras that suck up your battery life in no time:

LCD Screen: This is by far the most power sucking (haha I just love to use that word) feature in digital cameras. You can turn the screen off to conserve power, however I don’t recommend this because your LCD screen is very useful when you are taking photographs as it enables to determine if you have taken a great shot.

LCD Screen: This is by far the most power sucking (haha I just love to use that word huh) feature in digital cameras. You can turn the screen off to conserve power, however I don’t recommend this because your LCD screen is very useful when you are taking photographs as it enables to determine if you have taken a great shot.
Flash: Another big power sucker. Try not to use your flash so often.
Zooming: Zooming in and out also uses battery power as the motor in your camera is driven. Refrain from ‘zooming’ too much. I recommend staying close to full optical zoom.

Make Your Batteries Last Longer

Given that the two biggest power users on your camera are the LCD screen and Flash, there are indeed ways to reduce the usage of these 2 functions and save your camera power.

If your camera allows you to, reduce the brightness of the screen. This will still allow you to view your photo on your LCD, while using minimal amount of power.

Try to disable your flash when you’re in low light by increasing the light around you. Or increase the “ISO Speed”. Remember, the higher the ISO setting, the less light is needed to record the image.

Other Secrets for Making Your Batteries Last Longer:

Most digital cameras have a Power Saving mode. This ’shuts down’ the camera – not switch off – after a period of time without use. Make sure Power Saving mode is on, or simply switch off your camera when you’re not using it.
In cold weather, keep your camera and batteries warm in your jacket until you are ready to use them. Cold weather to batteries is like RAID is to bugs!
Store batteries in a cool, dry location away from sunlight and other heat sources.
Avoid unnecessary playback of your already taken images.
If you haven’t used your camera for a while, your rechargeable batteries will have lost some of their charge. Ensure you charge them fully before leaving the house.

Buy a Spare Battery

You can get double the time from of your camera before needing to recharge by using two batteries.

If you don’t need an extra battery all the time, you can have one charging at home when you’re using the other. Then when you get home, swap them.

Never leave your camera behind again because you don’t have a charged battery.

What Kind of Battery Should I Purchase?

You will need to purchase a battery that is compatible with your camera, so I recommend taking your camera’s battery to the shop with you when purchasing so the staff can find another compatible battery.

You don’t need to purchase a battery from the same manufacturer as your camera, although be aware that choosing another brand may void your warranty – check your manual.

Go for a rechargeable Lithium ion battery if possible. These battery types have a greater capacity and longer life than the rechargeable ni-cad batteries and will pay for themselves in a short period of time.

Use the AC Adapter

Most cameras have an adapter to allow you to plug directly into a power point.

If you’re going to be shooting for a long period of time in the one location, a camera plugged into a power point can be very handy.

Note that some cheaper cameras have the plug for an AC adapter, but not the adapter itself.

Choosing Your Digital Camera – Pixel Count

2010-04-18T11:03:00.000-07:00

It’s best to work out what equipment you really need and how to decipher the marketing spiel of the manufacturers and retailers so that you can make the right decision. Very often, people make the mistake of choosing the camera with the greatest number of megapixels. However, megapixels are not everything! Suffice to say, you only need a camera with a adequate amount of megapixels depending on the size of the photos you will want to print.

Use the megapixel chart below to determine the minimum number of pixel count on your camera you will generally need for your purposes. The numbers represent the megapixels you will need for the different sizes of your image.

The end of the adventure

2010-04-16T18:37:00.000-07:00

Well, everyone - this is the end of the road for this Roon-Boppin' Adventure. School is done and I am ready to enter the world of photography.

As such, I now have my very own website that I built with my own two hands - well mostly it was my fingers that did all the work.

I hope that you'll all come and visit me at my new website: www.washikamin.com

Here you'll find my portfolios as well as my new blog. I'm really excited about all of this. There is much change happening in my life right now and I couldn't be more excited.

Thank you all very much for following & checking out my blog for all these years.

The Rule of Thirds

2010-04-16T18:14:00.000-07:00

In Photography, there is this very famous rule that is preached a lot to the beginners. It's called "The Rule of Thirds".

Hmm... What it is this rule about? Well, in California, The Rule of Thirds means

"Whatever Money you make every month, is divided into Three pieces

First piece is taken away by the Government
Second piece is taken away by your landlord or the mortgage company
And the remaining piece, is shared by you, your spouse and kids."

Just Kidding, :-)

Rule of third is actually about how to position your subject in the picture. Actually it's not even a rule, it's rather a guideline for making reasonably framed pictures.

As there is no "Official Text", here is my version.

"Whenever appropriate, place your subject at one third distance from the edges of your frame."

Take a look at the picture below.

In this picture, the subject - the bikes - is placed in the middle of the frame, little bit off the center. The picture looks OK. Now compare this with the picture below.

The bikes are placed in one corner, centered approximately at one third height from bottom and one third width from right. The picture looks framed better then the first one.

Here is another example.

Below is the same scene, framed again with The Rule of Thirds in consideration.

Main contrast between the two pictures is the fact that, the first picture puts all the emphasis on the surfer by putting him in the middle, while the second picture puts almost equal emphasis on the surfer as well as his surrounding. It also puts emphasis on the direction of his movement and makes it look like the surfer has just entered the frame from the left side.

Another thing worth note here is that the frame is divided horizontally in almost equal parts by water, land and the background of mountains, making it very symmetric.

It does not make sense to try to use The Rule of Thirds for every picture. However, so far I have found that, in any frame where in addition to the subject, you also want to capture an essential property of the surrounding, the rule of third can be used very naturally to create a balance between the subject and the surrounding. For example, the example above shows the beauty of the lake side as well as includes the surfer in harmony with it.

Here are a few more examples.

At the Pier, San Francisco, California

All Terrain Vehicle, Rural India

Waiting for the Spring, Mountain View, California

Teaching Yourself Photography

2010-02-02T08:13:00.000-08:00

Imagine, for a second, that you are a young person with a camera. There are other cameras in the world around you, and there are people who use those cameras, too, but nobody really knows what they are doing, nobody can teach you anything you don’t already know, and the only tool you have in the world is the internet. All hope is lost … Or is it?

I was recently speaking to Elisa Longhitano, who found herself in the same situation. As she was telling me about how she was teaching herself photography, I found myself smiling, and wishing I had access to the internet back when I was learning. Either way, Elisa’s story is a lovely reminder of the fact that all you need to do to learn the dark (well, technically, the perfectly gradient) art of photography, is to be curious, and just that little bit inventive…

“It was during my last year in high school”, Elisa explains “that I decided to surf the web to find useful information about photography. During the search I stumbled across, and ended up contacting, Walter Lo Cascio, an Italian architect who has a powerful passion for photography. We became friends, and he ended up giving me a lot of great advice”, she recalls. The most important piece of advice was to seek inspiration from the outside world. “Look at those great pictures that are in books and on the web if you want to learn how to take a good picture”, he told her.

Like many others would, Elisa was worried if it was possible to learn how to take photos without active mentoring. “I thought it was impossible to learn how to take a good picture just looking at others’ works”, she recalls. “Walter would be relentless, however, and started showing me some of his and of others’ best pictures.”

Learning by recreating the work and techniques of others

“I started surfing through photography forums and reading the comments left for the pictures that fascinated me.”, she explains. “Reading the comments has been pretty useful to me because I have been able to learn from others’ mistakes and also because I’ve been able to find some interesting information about topics like ‘lens aperture’, ’shutter speed’, and other technical aspects of the shot.”

One of the photos which got Elisa inspired is the photo by Adolfo Fabbri, on the right. (Bigger version here) She started experimenting with the very dark, almost Frank Miller-esque low-key photography style, wanting to recreate the effect herself.

She started off trying to use partial back-lighting, arriving at something like this:

Which, despite being a pretty attractive photograph, was nowhere near what she was trying to accomplish? Further experimentation resulted in something which was a little bit more like it:
Which is, well, Elisa is pretty much straight on the money: It’s not a bad shot, but “It is just a meaningless underexposure!”
Obviously, more experimentation would be necessary to really learn this new technique. She continued experimenting, and eventually happened upon a photo which turned out to be rather beautiful. The only problem? “I didn’t remember exactly what I did to reach this result!” – I’m sure most of us have experienced the same at one point or another…
As a physics student, the fact that she was unable to recreate the shot drove her spare: “I just couldn’t be satisfied because I kept thinking ‘In physics, too, an experiment makes sense only if you can repeat it’”. So she did what any good scientist would do: Set herself a target. “I must be able to repeat this kind of shot”.
So, the experiments continued.
“I started thinking about what I had to do, and I realized that beyond the shutter speed or the lens aperture, it was also important to care about where lights come from and what is behind the subject”
The further experiments involved a lot of taking photos into the light (or ‘backlighting’, as it tends to be called), as you can see from the photos on the left. “I liked these pictures”, Elisa told me, but still wasn’t quite happy: “Even if they are both taken against the light there were too many details”.
So, Elisa continued experimenting systematically. By taking a photo at one shutter time, evaluating it carefully, and then dialing back the shutter time yet a little bit more, her vision of what she wanted to do with low-key photography started to take form.
“I did nothing special or original”, she claims with just a little bit too much humbleness for my liking: “I only tried to learn and take inspiration from other works, and with a lot of attempts and effort I think to have reached something decent.”
Of course, this wouldn’t be much of a story if it didn’t have a rather stunning end… And it does, in the form of a portrait of her boyfriend Emanuele, titled Against the Darkness:
Lessons learned

1.       Use the internet to find photographs you like. With services such as Flickr (in this case, try searching for Low Key and select ‘most interesting’ as the sort order) or DeviantArt (Same, but ‘Low Key’ and ‘Popular’), you can find tons of inspiration.
2.       Don’t let anyone tell you what is good or bad. Make up your own mind. Select 5 photos in the genre you are trying to learn something about, and then put them in order of best to worst. What makes the best photo ‘best’? How could you recreate this?
3.       First, re-create a photo. This is a purely technical exercise – worry about creativity later.
4.       Once you have the technical skills down pat (again, a website like DeviantArt can be incredibly useful in this respect – Tell people what you’re trying to do, ask for feed-back, sit back and be amazed), try to think out a photo where you can use the new technique you’ve learned.
5.       Keep trying a new technique for a while, create your own style based on the technique.
6.       When you go bored of it, or feel like you’re ready for another challenge… Well, go to step 1!
A huge thank-you to Elisa for contributing so strongly to this article. Check out more of her photos on Flickr!

This Article Source: www.photocritic.org, was posted by Haje Jan Kamps

Please share this link, and let everyone know you found it here at: www.thewashik.blogspot.com

Free guide to your rights as a photographer

2010-02-02T07:29:00.000-08:00

The Photographer’s Right

A Downloadable Flyer Explaining Your Rights When Stopped or Confronted for Photography

Written by Bert P. Krages II, Attorney at Law and updated in 2006 it is available free here: The Photographer’s Right

"The Photographer’s Right is a downloadable guide that is loosely based on the Bust Card and the Know Your Rights pamphlet that used to be available on the ACLU website. It may be downloaded and printed out using Adobe Acrobat Reader. You may make copies and carry them your wallet, pocket, or camera bag to give you quick access to your rights and obligations concerning confrontations over photography. You may distribute the guide to others, provided that such distribution is not done for commercial gain and credit is given to the author."

And remember...
Please share this link, and let everyone know you found it here at: www.thewashik.blogspot.com

Thanks.

Five Common Photo Mistakes

2010-01-30T20:18:00.000-08:00

Learning from the pros is always a great way to improve your skills. That's why we read books and watch videos, like the ones I highlighted in "Treasure Trove of Photo Tutorials." It's always instructive to see how the masters work and try to emulate them. But there's a lot to learn we can learn from the exact opposite--by studying the things that can go wrong.

Today, let's look at the five most common mistakes I see in everyday photography, and learn how to avoid them. And while you're at it, you might want to peek back at my recent "Getting Started in Digital Photography" for some more basic tips.

1. The Subject Is Underexposed

· If you're taking pictures indoors, move near a window or bring a lamp or two into the room.

· Move closer to your subject.

· Manually adjust the shutter speed on your camera.

· Change exposure settings. Digital cameras allow you to adjust the exposure of your photos from the main Capture menu. For lighter photos, adjust exposure up; for darker photos, adjust down. You are able to see what your image will look like as you adjust this setting.

2. The Photo Is Blurry

Blurry picture are the bane of every photographer. But diagnosing the problem isn't always easy, because there are many reasons for indistinct photos. For example, it's possible the image wasn't in focus, or that the shutter speed was too slow.

· Avoid shutter lag (the time between pressing the trigger and the camera taking the picture) by pressing the trigger halfway down. When the right moment comes, press all the way down to instantly capture the desired photo. This strategy is great when you're taking pictures of people (especially kids) or animals that may move and then be still for a moment.

· Use a tripod or brace yourself against a stationary object to hold the camera still.

· When it's dark, use your camera's Night Scenery mode (which uses a long exposure and no flash) or Night Portrait (which uses a flash and a long exposure) shooting mode. Because of the longer exposure times, a tripod is a necessity with both of these modes.

· If your subject is moving, use the Action shooting mode on your camera. This setting automatically optimizes your shutter speed to capture the action.

3. The Subject Has Red Eyes

Ah, the old Zombie Eyes. Red eye almost always happens when you shoot in low-light conditions with a camera-mounted flash. The solution is to turn up the lights and turn off the flash. Shoot outdoors in daylight whenever possible. When you have to shoot indoors, make sure the camera's red-eye reduction mode is enabled. See "Avoid the Red Eye Effect" for all sorts of tips on avoiding this problem.

· Turn off your camera's flash.

· If it's too dark to go without a flash, ask you’re subject to look toward the camera, but not directly at the lens.

· By taking photos during the day, you'll most likely eliminate the need for a flash.

· If necessary, bring in additional light sources.

· Stand farther away from your subject.

4. Subject Is Too Far Away

When you're composing a picture using the LCD or the viewfinder, it's easy to make the mistake of trying to fit too much into the photo, which leaves the photo lacking a focal point. Also, not using the zoom feature can lead to similar results. This one's easy. Simply get closer to your subject or use the zoom feature on your digital camera. As you're composing, ask yourself, "Does my subject fill the frame?"

5. Overexposed (bright) Photos

Bright light, including daytime sunlight, can cause photos to have very light and very dark areas, which is unpleasing to the eye. Also, high-contrast photos usually lack detail, so they tend to look washed out.

Try one of the following methods to even out the lighting in your pictures:

· On sunny days, find a patch of shade to photograph your subjects.

· Use a flash, which will cast an even light over your subject.

· Take advantage of overcast days for photography. No shadows!

A Crash Course in Lightning Photography

2010-01-30T13:59:00.000-08:00

“We interrupt the 100 Steps broadcast to give you this crash course! We do not regret the inconvenience and are pretty sure you will agree!”

Okay, enough jokes

The other day, the weather here was very stormy. Thunder, lightning, strong winds and cars flying around! Alright, I’m kidding about the flying cars, but seriously, it was awesome weather. I love this kind of weather and am not one to rush inside. And I’m glad for that, because staying outside; I was able to witness spectacular lightning like I’ve never seen before with my own eyes. And standing there looking at yet another one of nature’s many wonders, I was reminded of a time when I used to look at pictures of lightning and say to myself, “WOW! How the hell did they manage to capture THAT!?”

I still go wow whenever I look at a good lightning shot, but the difference now is that I now know how to do it. And the fact that it’s simple enough for anyone to do adds to the fun. So here I would like to share with you the simple and easy way to take brilliant pictures of lightning. Here’s what you need to do:

· You’ll need: A camera with bulb mode (Bulb mode allows you to manually expose the sensor for as long as you want), a heavy, sturdy tripod, and a remote or cable shutter release.

· Next, you need to look for a good vantage point. Basically get someplace where you can get a good view of the storm and lightning.

· Set-up your tripod and mount your camera on it. Use a sturdy tripod that’ll hold its ground, because high speed winds can take lots of stuff with them Make sure you set up in a location where your camera won’t get wet.

· Next, set the focus of your lens at infinity. Use the wide end, because it’ll give you a higher probability of capturing a bolt, along with a more dramatic view.

· Observe the sky for a while and determine where the probability for a lightning strike is maximum, or where there are boltless flashes above the clouds, or where the bolts last longer, and frame your shot accordingly. Including a landscape or cityscape enhances the picture.

· Use an aperture of f/5.6 to f/11, depending on the exposure time you intend to use. A wider aperture (smaller f number) will also mean thicker bolts and vice versa.

· You’re all set then. Press the shutter release, and hope to get some shiny displays. Hold the shutter open long enough to capture some bolts. Different combinations of aperture and exposure time will result in a variety of exposures. Experiment.

That’s it! It’s that easy. It helps if you enjoy such weather so that you don’t have a problem waiting. And of course, luck does play a role.

I hope you enjoyed this post, and that you’ll be out going clickety click in the next storm. Remember to take basic precautions that are meant to be taken during lightning (don’t stand in the middle of an open space or under a tree etc.).

Your comments mean a lot, so keep ‘em coming!

The Optics Of Photography.

2010-01-30T10:06:00.000-08:00

PHOTOGRAPHY is the joint child of optics and chemistry. All that has been discovered about the influence of light upon the salts of silver and analogous substances might have been known, and yet, without the "dark chamber," the art of photography would have remained non-existent. It may even be said that the prior discovery of the camera obscura made photography possible. This simple instrument was the invention of Giambattista Della Porta of Padua in 1569. The principle of it will be best understood by the simple experiment of darkening a room by closing the window-shutters, and admitting a ray of light through a small hole in them. If a sheet of white paper be fixed at a little distance from this aperture, the figures of external objects will be seen delineated upon it; and, by putting a small lens over the aperture, they are rendered much more evident from the condensation of the rays by the spherical glass. This will be readily understood by the following diagram (Fig. I). Let C D be a window-shutter having a small aperture at A, and E F a piece of paper placed in a dark chamber. If now an illuminated Object, R G B, be placed on the outside of the shutter, we shall observe an inverted image of this object depicted on the paper E F at B G R.

In order to understand how this inversion takes place, let us suppose the object R G B to have three distinct colours, red at R, green at G, and blue at B ; then it is plain that the red light from R will pass in straight lines through the opening A and fall upon the paper at R. In the same way, the green from G, and the blue from B, will respectively fall upon the paper at G and B, and an inverted image B G R of the object R G B will be depicted upon it.

If, instead of a darkened room, we substitute a darkened box (Fig. 2), the same effect will be perceived. Suppose, in the first place, the box to be without the lens, the rays would pass from the external arrow in nearly right lines through the aperture, refracted only in passing the solid edges of the opening, and form an image on the back of the dark box. The lens refracts the rays, and a smaller, but a much clearer and more perfectly defined image is the result. Such, briefly, is the principle of the camera obscure, the basis of the camera of the photographer.

It will be seen that, whether as regards the chemicals he uses or the instrument with which he works, light is the subtle agent, the grand motive power, wherewith the photographer produces his effects. Without going, therefore, into the nature of light, it will be well to enter a little into some of the laws governing its action which have a relation to photography.

A ray of light passing through a vacuum progresses in a perfectly straight line, and were it possible under such conditions to gaze at a brilliantly illuminated point, we should see it in its true position, that is, the rays coming directly to the eye. But all transparent matter, however attenuated it may be, has the property of bending or refracting the light ray. Hence we do not see the stars in their true positions, owing to the refracting power of the atmosphere.

The law of refraction may be demonstrated in the following simple manner. Take a bowl, and in the bottom of it place a shilling ; then move away until the eye loses sight of the coin, when it will appear as in Fig. 3, A representing the shilling and B the eye of the observer. The coin is of course invisible. Now let some one pour water into the bowl, taking care the while to keep the eye fixed on the same spot. The shilling gradually becomes more and more visible, until it comes entirely into view. The explanation of the phenomenon is that the ray of light-producing vision in the eye is refracted, or bent back, as in Fig. 4; C representing the water and A B the ray of light refracted.

The refractive power of water is also observable when we thrust a straight stick into it. The stick seems to be bent. Hence persons spearing fish have to aim at a point below the object of their aim, else the weapon will miss by striking too high. Another illustration of refraction is to allow a sunbeam S (Fig. 5) passing through an aperture in the window-shutter of a darkened room to fall upon the surface of a fluid contained in a glass vessel L L ; instead of proceeding to S', it will be found to alter its course on entering the fluid, and pass along the line to M. A ray of light, however, striking a refracting medium perpendicularly, as the ray N (Fig. 5), suffers no refraction.

The amount of bending back a ray undergoes depends on the comparative density or rarity of the substance through which it goes. If the medium which the rays enter he denser, they pass through it in a direction more closely approximating to the perpendicular. On the other hand, when a beam of light passes obliquely out of a denser into a rarer medium it proceeds in a direction further from the perpendicular. This refraction is greater or less according as the second medium through which the rays pass is more or less dense than the first.

In proof of this, take an upright vessel into a dark room, which admits but a single slanting ray of light through an aperture in the shutter. Let the vessel stand on the floor, a few feet from the window admitting the light, and let it be so placed that, as the pencil of light descends towards the floor, it just passes over the top of the side next the window, and strikes the bottom on the side farthest from the window. Let the spot where it falls be marked. Now, on filling the vessel with water, the ray, instead of striking the original spot, will fall considerably nearer the side towards the window. If salt be added to the water in such quantity as to form a dense solution, the point where the ray strikes the bottom will fall still nearer the window. So, if alcohol be substituted for water, the refraction will be greater; and greater still should oil be used.

These laws of refraction are of the utmost importance to the photographer, inasmuch as it is by their careful study and application that the optician is enabled to fashion lenses to meet his needs.

By a lens is meant what is commonly called a magnifying glass, which may be composed of any transparent substance, but in its application to photography it is generally made of glass—flint or crown—as colourless as can be obtained.

Lenses are of different shapes, and thence derive different names. The following figures represent sections of the variously shaped lenses used in photography.

A, B and C are convex or converging lenses, D, E and F concave or diverging lenses.

A is a double convex, and is used for magnifying objects, as in spectacles, telescopes, microscopes, and other similar instruments. B is a piano-convex, flat on one side and convex on the other. C is a meniscus or periscope lens, convex on one side and concave on the other, both surfaces meeting, and of which we have an example in watch-glasses. D is a double concave lens.

E is a piano-concave, or plane on one side and concave on the other. F is an example of the convex-concave or negative meniscus lens, in which the surfaces disagree, or do not meet when continued.

In all these lenses there is an imaginary line, represented by M N, and passing through the centres of the surfaces, which is called the axis.

Thus, when the axis of a lens is spoken of, it means a line passing through it perpendicular to its surface. In converging lenses the rays of light passing through them unite at a point, called the focus, some distance beyond the surface. - Diverging lenses, on the other hand, cause the rays of light to go further apart, and are concave in form with broad edges. Of the varied qualities of these lenses it will be necessary to speak in a subsequent chapter; it suffices here thus briefly to distinguish them.

It was Porta's knowledge of the powers of lenses that suggested to him the idea of placing an objective in the orifice of the dark box, so as to bring the image produced as nearly as possible to a fixed point, and thus to reduce the camera to small and portable dimensions. The lens Porta used was a plano-convex, the rounded face being turned to the ground-glass. By thus hitting upon his ingenious contrivance he unconsciously took an important step in the evolution of the photographic art.

10 Easy Steps To Advanced Photography Skills

2010-01-30T09:36:00.000-08:00

A camera does not work like an eye; film does not work like memory. There is a fine line between a photo that is quite nice and one that is quite breathtaking. At some unknown point, a photo can cross the Rubicon and be forever a piece of beautiful art. That hinterland between a regular photo and evocative art is a shifting area from person to person and taste to taste. However, that zone can be narrowed a bit once you start to consider the way the brain stores memories and emotions.

And yes, it gets a bit touchy-feely here trying to determine if your work has crossed that line. With rigorous practice and peer feedback, you can start to appreciate where that zone is and, consequently, improve your hit ratio.

The back of the Taj Mahal during a summer sunset.

The good news is that divining your way to more beautiful photos does not require rune rites of scapulimancy. There are some basic things and mantras to keep in mind as you practice and fail, then practice and succeed, then practice and fail, then practice and succeed, and rinse and repeat. We’ll detail a few of these below.

1. Think about the Brain

I’ve always thought about photography differently. I grew up seeing out of only one eye, thanks to several botched surgeries in the 1970s using refurbished archaeological tools of the Australopithecus medicine men.

When you see out of one eye your whole life and then start using a camera in your mid-30s, something happens to you! You come to realize that a camera works nothing like the eye. Forget 3D; I’m talking about the way the brain stores images and scenes.

Upon birth, you have legs, but it takes a few years for your legs to get along with your brain well enough to actually walk you around the savanna a bit. The eyes are the same. They get wired faster than the legs, but the neural pathways from the optic nerve to the parts of the brain that matter takes a while to find their chemical trails. You start to sense light levels, then shapes, then edges, then relative positions and the like. And then, around the age 2 or 3, you finally come up with a tagging system that allows you to know generally what a “barn” looks like. Your brain has been working nonstop over that time to give you the visual and memory infrastructure to enable this watershed event.

Fourth of July on Lake Austin: the first HDR photograph to hang in the Smithsonian.

Now, let’s fast forward to today. You’re older, your brain is more or less fully formed, and you happen upon a barn in a field. But it’s not just any barn: it’s the barn you’ve wanted to see your entire life. And in the distance, a storm is brewing as a gentle sun sets. It’s beautiful; you lock it into memory. The way you lock it into memory is nothing like the way a camera records the image on film (or a CCD). This is what I quickly came to realize as I sat there, looking at a photo I took with a fabulously expensive Nikon and showing it to a friend. “Well, you really had to be there.” I’m sure you’ve all said that!

Now, this first step is a big step: it’s a philosophical re-assessment of how the camera works in contrast to how the memory maps a scene, the latter being a process of layering visual reality with the emotions and memories linked to that scene. You see, you are not just remembering that barn but are remembering every barn; you are not just remembering that storm but are remembering every storm. A beautiful photo must tell the epic tale of the memory, linked with the other emotions that fold into a whole.

2. Engage In The New Global Salon

In the 1860s, all art roads led to the Salon in Paris, which was the most important judged competition of art in the western world. During a period of just over 10 years, the Impressionist masters battled it out in a competitive and cooperative tour de force that created a panoply of creations that we now cannot imagine the world without.

The reason Paris became the center of the art world and an explosion of new art is the combination of new technology in travel and communications combined with Napoleon III’s focus on infrastructure around the Salon.

Hong Kong from a peak on a summer night as the city comes alive.

Today the same thing is happening, although perhaps not everyone really realizes it in a grand historical sense. It’s called Flickr. Flickr has become a techno-Salon, allowing the world to easily use the Internet to enter the competition and force each other to evolve and improve their art. The automated “Explore Algorithm” does a pretty good job of automatically filtering the best photos that are uploaded every day. Go ahead and look at some of the current best of the last 7 days.

Click “Reload” a few times and I promise you will have seen something that impresses. It is quite unbelievable the level of art and beauty that is created every single day. Now, all of this amazing art on Flickr can either inspire or intimidate you, depending on your mindset for competition. I hope it inspires you to upload one photo a day and see if you can make it in the top 500 or even the top 10. And don’t give up. Competition makes everyone better; this is an undeniable truth, and you are not realizing your full potential if you remove yourself from the process.

I can think of a number of things Flickr can do to improve this new global competition. Its AI algorithm to find the most interesting new artists still makes many mistakes. Maybe I will save that for another article! But in many ways, Flickr is close to squandering an amazing opportunity to set the art world on fire.

3. Get Rid Of Your Toy Camera

Oh, look at that camera you have! It’s so tiny and slim and techno-looking. Look! It fits right in your pocket! Oh my, you can take it to parties and sporting events, and it’s so convenient. Oh, it is 10 megapixels, too? Oh my. Well, that is a good camera then!

No, it’s not. It’s a toy: give it to your kids or the nearest gradeschooler (for whom it was designed) and get serious. I know that 19-year-old punk at Best Buy told you that your compact camera is really neat and just what you need. But are you gonna listen to him or me?

Get yourself a DSLR (I have suggestions on my page that aren’t very expensive for people just starting out). For those of you who don’t know, a DSLR is one of those cameras you see the pros carrying, but it doesn’t have to be a giant one like what you see in the NFL endzone.

Sorry to be rude about the toy thing, but you want to take more beautiful pictures, no? Well, a decent DSLR has such a good sensor chip, combined with more flexible lenses that your batting average will dramatically improve.

An ancient Hindu temple at sunset in the jungles of Indonesia.

Also (people with DSLRs already know this), it is important to have a good wide-angle lens for landscapes. Beautiful photography does not have to be of a landscape, but it commonly is, and this is what many people envision when they want to make their own beautiful photos. So, we should talk about wide-angle lenses here for a moment.

If you are used to using a toy camera, then you have never really seen the world through a good 10 to 24mm lens. It’s almost the difference between regular TV and HDTV. The vistas are wide and bold; the clouds, sun and mountains all fit; the river and bridge are easy to compose; and so on. Once you go wide-angle, your landscape will never be the same!

4. Carry a Tripod for Those Beautiful Sunsets and Sunrises

Oh, what’s that? You don’t want to carry a tripod? What are you, a 9-year-old? Now, come on. You’re a grown-up, and you want to take some seriously beautiful photos. Do you think pros carry around tripods because they like the extra weight? No, of course not. They know what the heck they’re doing.

If you bit off on getting a DSLR, then you are going to need a tripod, especially for sunset and night shots. Unless you have the steady hand of a T-1000, you are going to get some camera shake.

A tripod allows you to do the following things with landscape photography (in no particular order): set up and take your time to compose a photo with serious intent; keep noise low as the shutter stays open longer; look cool as you carry it around; keep the shutter open for 5 or more seconds for those fleeting sunrise and sunset shots; use it as a weapon in a tight spot while traveling (not kidding).

Dresden, Germany

So, are you still worried about carrying it around? The problem, you understand, is mostly your attitude. Let me provide a different perspective. Nothing in life is worth doing unless you’re serious about it. Believe that you are going to shoot that sunset, and you are going to take your nice DSLR and tripod out there and make it happen, and no one is going to stop you. You’re carrying that tripod around because you’re serious about it. Otherwise, you could just go sit on a pretty beach at sunset and drink beer with your friends and not be serious about it. Go ahead… but you won’t be getting any beautiful photography out of it.

5. Admire Impressionism

I spoke earlier about the Salon of Paris and what happened during the Impressionist movement. While the process and examples of what happens when artists start cooperating and competing is interesting from a social-group evolutionary perspective, this section is more about the art itself.

Early critics of the art form found it crude, sloppy and unconventional, to the point that they felt it didn’t even deserve to be placed alongside the classic masters. But the public was awestruck by the new art form. It doesn’t take a critic to know good art, but it does take a careful and discerning eye.

Consider the colors and styles of Degas, Cézanne, Monet and Renoir. There is not a single detail about any well-known Impressionist painting that is the slightest bit “realistic.” But yet, the rough shapes and colors still make sense. Something about it just feels right. What is that something?

An icy lake at sunrise, fed from the seasonal melt at Glacier National Park; a panorama of 90 shots.

To me, what feels right about Impressionism is what we discussed above. These Impressionist images go deep into viewers’ brains and evoke memories of shared scenes and events. The memory is in fact an Impressionist playground of fleeting colors, shapes and edges. A face here, a blur there, a hint of something almost there, but not quite.

Look at Monet’s work. Think about how the yellows of a sun in the distance are the same yellow as an up-close flower. But something about the colors makes the sun feel brighter than the flower. How does he do that? Can you get closer to achieving this with your photography?

As you look at Impressionist paintings, juxtapose them with your own photography. If you want to evoke the same sort of feelings, then consider how it was done without resorting to realism.

6. Practice with HDR

What is HDR? It’s short for High Dynamic Range photography, and it’s all the rage. I have a tutorial on HDR on my blog. But here, I’ll explain HDR in a circuitous but meaningful way.

About 80% of my photos are in HDR, but I do something a little different. As you start looking into HDR (many of you already have), you will begin to notice how absolutely horrible most HDR looks. When many people begin experimenting with it (myself included), it is overdone and looks too psychedelic. Over time, mine have improved via rigorous self-examination and an evolving methodology.

Remember that bit about me growing up and seeing the world with one eye? Now, we come to the second part of this daring mini-biography as we are cross the stepping stones to my point. My background in college was Computer Science and Math, so I’ve always thought about things in terms of algorithms and software. The very first time I used a DSLR camera, when I was 35 or so, I very quickly came to the realization that something was missing.

A young Amish boy allows me to freeze time after I help him carry wood with his sisters.

That missing something was the “software” layer between the eye and the memory. Consider what you do with the barn and apply it to how the camera works. You survey the scene. Your eye jumps around from interesting object to interesting object, sometimes moving slowly, sometimes quickly. Your eye lets in more light in some areas, less in others as your pupil dilates. You squint into the setting sun and see warm colors splashed across the clouds, grass and barn. You remember other barns, other storms, other sunsets. You may have been with someone or were alone, but you certainly remember. You lock it all up in your mind’s eye forever.

Because we are visual creatures, a photo or painting can evoke great memories. But the only way to trigger some of those intense memories on a deep level is to adjust the light levels in the photograph, so that the light levels and color match those buried in your head. The HDR process can help achieve these goals.

7. Take Your Camera Everywhere

Don’t just take your camera out on those rare occasions when you actually decide to set aside a portion of your day for photography. Face it: we’re all busy people with real lives, and setting aside three to four hours for anything extracurricular is tough. But it takes only a few seconds to get inspired for a photo, and it’s no good if your camera is backing home.

Gulfoss in Iceland. Catholic theologians of old believed this was the entrance to hell.

Keep it in the trunk of your car in a fun little photo backpack, with a small selection of lenses. You never know when you will see something wonderful. Use this opportunity to take at least one photo a day. It doesn’t have to be a grand landscape; just something small and nice that you may not have noticed before.

8. Understand the Fantasy/Reality Membrane

Do you have kids? Are you a kid at heart? Think about when you were a kid and what happened when you turned into a jaded old grown-up. Maybe by the end of this section you can ask yourself some new questions about reality.

Kids have this remarkable “membrane” between fantasy and reality. They can jump back and forth between the two in an effortless way. In fact, the membrane itself is wonderfully “thick,” in that there is a vast dream-state wilderness where the world is both fantasy and reality. When pressed, kids will tell you what is real and what is pretend, but that is often a painful process that pries them from the escapism they felt so viscerally just a few moments before.

My personal foray over the last year into learning how to draw.

When we are all grown up and serious, that membrane is razor thin and there is little tolerance of “pretend” and “fantasy.” Why is this? Is it because we are surrounded by other serious people and want to conform? Is it because fantastic escapades are what “kids” do and thus not pertinent to our lives?

Obviously, we can all still get into that fantasy zone, and we all love it. That’s why movies are still such a potent force; they give us social permission to be like kids for two hours, once a week. It also explains the growing relevance of online games.

But when we start talking about photography — well now, that is a different subject! Photography is a serious art form, practiced by classically trained masters whose reality is quite serious indeed! There mustn’t be anything fantastical in the art form. The process goes from camera straight to the film, you see!

Poppycock.

9. Learn To Draw

This is a weird one, eh? Who on Earth has time to learn to draw? Well, you would have time if you stopped wasting it on less important activities. You’ve got one life here, so you might as well start applying yourself. “I don’t have any time! I have kids to look after, a full-time job, a bunch of cool games to play, books to read, exercising to do, a bit of photography, and blah blah blah.”

As a personal experiment, I wanted to see if anyone could learn to draw. This is similar to an earlier experiment I did on myself to see if I could take something I hated and turn it into something I enjoyed. That experiment was with coffee, but I was afraid that learning to draw would be harder, particularly because of the jitteriness introduced from the first experiment.

A tame wild-haired horse on the windy fjords of Iceland.

I’ve always admired people who can just grab a pencil and paper and make something amazing. Man, I’ve always wanted to be able to do that! I began the experiment with the hypothesis that great natural artists can draw anything without any instruction whatsoever. These are true masters, and I was unlikely to reach that level. However, I thought I could become adequate at drawing and be at least satisfied with myself. A great side-effect, I envisioned, would be new insight into photography: into line, shape, light and composition.

All of this turned out to be true. So, if you have hit a rough spot or are in the doldrums with photography, take up drawing. A few instructional books out there are practical hands-on guides that give you basic pointers. I think you will be quite impressed by how it starts to bleed into your photographic art!

10. Make Mistakes

Make a lot of mistakes. Throw yourself and your art out there and see what works and what doesn’t. Show your stuff to true friends who will give you frank feedback.

Don’t be like those sorry saps on American Idol who make fools of themselves in big auditions because they’ve spent their whole life listening to their tone-deaf mom tell them they are incredible at singing “Over the Rainbow” or because Aunt Mabel enjoyed it so much during the grade 2 play.

Get yourself online and begin making friends by finding other photographers who you respect. Beg and plead for them to come look at one or two of your photos and give frank feedback. They will cut you apart, but just take your medicine, lick your wounds, and go out there and improve.

Extra Credit

To end off, here is a random selection of some of my other favorites.

If you have any comment or feedback please mail at thewashik@gmail.com.

First Steps Towards Photography.

2010-01-30T07:38:00.000-08:00

THE history of photography is a curious one. It shows how important discoveries are the outcome, not of one mind, but of the investigations of numberless men, working entirely independently of each other, and to ends altogether diverse. It falls to one man perhaps, by a lucky hit, to put the finishing touch to an edifice at which others may have been working for years, but who are liable to be forgotten in the success and fame of the one who achieves the completion of the structure. This is peculiarly the case with photography.

It has been observed that the tanning of the skin by exposure to the sun's rays is as much a photographic action as is the blackening of Luna cornea, or horn silver, the observation of which may be said to have been the first step in the science of photography. This horn silver is found in the mines of Freiberg. It is a vitreous, dully shining silver ore, and consists of silver and chlorine in chemical combination, and hence is known to science as chloride of silver. It can be artificially produced by passing chlorine gas over metallic silver. In its native state horn silver is completely colorless, but as soon as it is exposed to the light of day it in the course of a few minutes assumes a violet tint.

This effect of light upon Luna cornea appears to have been first observed by the alchemist Fabric's in 1556, and long after his time it attracted the attention of men of science, although without• leading to any practical results.

In another substance containing silver this phenomenon is still more apparent. If silver be dissolved in nitric acid, and the solution be then evaporated, a solid mass of crystals is obtained. This is nitrate of silver, which fuses readily and destroys organic matter. Hence its use as a corrosive agent under the name of lunar caustic. Anything sprinkled with a solution of it very soon assumes a dark colour.

Many persons must have observed the blackening of paper under the action of lunar caustic, in which lay the primary secret of photography, and yet it was long years before any one thought of the uses to which it might be applied in the production of pictures by means of light.

The first person of whom we have any record who attempted to turn to account this property of silver nitrate to darken under the influence of light appears to have been a German physician, Johan Heinrich Schultze, of Halle, who, in 1727, attempted by means of written characters upon a surface prepared with a mixture of chalk and a solution of silver nitrate to take copies therefrom on paper that had been made translucent. The experiment, however, attracted very little attention, and probably was not very successful. Nothing material was added to these results until, in 1777, the famous Swedish chemist, Charles William Scheele, took up the discovery of Fabricius, and applying combined chemical and spectrum analysis to the science of photography, found that the violet rays of the spectrum act more energetically upon silver chloride than the blue, yellow, or red rays, or in other words, than the less refrangible rays. He thus proved that the rays of light are not all alike chemically active.

These results were confirmed a few years later by Senebier, who found that the violet rays in fifteen seconds blackened silver chloride as much as the red rays did in twenty minutes.

Scheele, however, went further than this. Exposing silver chloride to the action of sunlight under water, and when the white salt had darkened, pouring away the water and adding a little silver nitrate, he found a white substance was formed which proved to be silver chloride (caused by the silver nitrate combining with chlorine dissolved in the water). He thus demonstrated that the effect of sunlight upon chloride of silver is to decompose it, and so compel it to give up a part if not the whole of its chlorine.

This important discovery was carried still further in 1801 by Ritter of Jena, who demonstrated the existence of rays lying beyond the violet limit of the solar spectrum, and that they too had the power of darkening silver chloride.

Ritter also announced "that the red rays have the property of undoing the work effected by the violet; " but he appears to have misunderstood the cause of the action. Similar results were obtained by Wollaston, the English chemist, in 1803. He found that gum guaiacum, when exposed to the influence of the blue rays, became changed in colour, and that on exposing those altered portions to the red rays the original tint was restored.

It is claimed by the French that the first actual photograph was taken by Professor Charles, who, struck with the property possessed by silver salts to blacken in contact with light, made some interesting experiments in a course of lectures on physics delivered by him at the Louvre in 1780. By means of a strong ray of light he threw the silhouette of one of his pupils upon a sheet of paper that had been saturated with chloride of silver. The paper, under the action of the light, blackened immediately at those parts which were exposed to the sun's rays, while it remained white in those parts where the shadow fell, so that the figure of the youth was shown in white upon a black ground. But as soon as the shadow was withdrawn, the white, exposed to the sun's rays, began to darken. M. Charles, however, left no account of his process, and considerable doubt has been thrown upon the reported achievement.

While up to the end of the eighteenth century the problem of drawing by light was still an unsolved one, it is curious to note that, among the hints and foreshadowings of photography that have been collected, one Frenchman made so apt a guess at sun-picturing that it amounted almost to a prophecy. The genius in question, Tiphaigne de la Roche, in the year 1760 published a book which he called " Giphantie " (an anagram of his name), and in which, amongst other Munchausenisms, he describes a method whereby a strange people, in whose land he is sojourning, produce pictures of objects. "You know," says his guide, "that rays of light reflected from different bodies form pictures, paint the image reflected on all polished surfaces, for example, on the retina of the eye, on water, and on glass. The spirits have sought to fix these fleeting images; they have made a subtle matter by means of which a picture is formed in the twinkling of an eye. They coat a piece of canvas with this matter, and place it in front of the object to be taken. The first effect of this cloth is similar to that of a mirror, but by means of its viscous nature, the prepared canvas, as is not the case with the mirror, retains a facsimile of the image. The mirror represents images faithfully, but retains none; our canvas reflects them no less faithfully, but retains them all. This impression of the image is instantaneous. The canvas is then removed and deposited in a dark place. An hour later the impression is dry, and you have a picture the more precious that no art can imitate its truthfulness." *

It is hardly possible to read this strange foreshadowing of the photographic art without feeling that De la Roche had been gazing upon the magic pencillings of the camera obscura, and that in imagination he had realised the problem which investigators a few years later were trying to solve.

What is photography?

2010-01-30T07:20:00.000-08:00

The art or process of producing images by the action of light on surfaces sensitized by chemical processes.

Photographic prints can be made from photographic negatives, positive transparencies, or digital images, and printed on a wide variety of substrates, including photo paper, fine art paper, and canvas. They can be black and white or color. Many artists, especially those whose works appeared early in the 20th century, are highly collectible. A number of contemporary artists also specialize in photography.

The process of forming and fixing an image of an object or objects by the chemical action of light and other forms of radiant energy on photosensitive surfaces. The art or business of producing and printing photographs.

Writing with light. A technique of capturing optical images on film.

Photography is the process of making pictures by means of the action of light. It involves recording light patterns, as reflected from objects, onto a sensitive medium through a timed exposure. The process is done through mechanical, chemical or digital devices commonly known as cameras.