Category Archives: The Camera

Methods of developing your photographic eye through knowing your camera.

Photography Challenge of the Week

Challenge Assignment for the week of May 11th

This week lets try some evening or night long exposures into which we introduce some artificial light. The image below is one example of using a long exposure to capture a room lit by night light from the exterior, and light from the interior is introduced to create a ghost-like image.

How I Exposed My Sample Image

To create this image, I opened the curtains of the room, introducing a little bit of night light into the room. I place the camera on a bookshelf (a tripod would be best, but anything firm will do), the camera indicated a one-minute exposure would work. I set the camera to one minute. I put the camera timer on so that when I depressed the shutter button, there would be time for the camera to be perfectly still when the shutter went off. When the shutter opened, I momentarily turned a lamp in the room on and stepped into the shot. I held a pose for the count of five, then stepped out of the shot and turned the lamp off. I did this several times until I was happy with how long to stand with the lamp on and the positioning of everything in the frame. Make sure you do a lot of experimenting with your capture to explore the possibilities thoroughly. 

If you are a little rusty on long exposures, don’t worry you can review the material found on this site at the following link:  https://photography.edwardpeck.com/1-intro-setup-triad-and-practice/5-2/

My method is just one of many ways of approaching this challenge. For example, instead of a lamp, you could use flashlights or other sources of light. You could introduce candles into the image to see what that source of light might do during a long exposure. Don’t be afraid to experiment even if it goes wrong; mistakes often lead to unique and creative images. This challenge should be a lot of fun. If you feel like setting up outside this works as well.

The Image-Making Process

In Roland Barthes “Camera Lucida” he deconstructs the word photograph in Latin suggesting it would be translated “imago lucis opera expressa;” “which is to say: image revealed, extracted, mounted, expressed… by the action of light.” In other words, the process of photography does not stop after the shutter has closed, once it is revealed either as a negative or a positive in a computer the photographer is engaged in how to extract the image. How will it be developed? Which image from a session best captures what the photographer wants to express? Does the image trigger an idea that suggests a new session or does it suggest a new direction of expression?

Once an image is selected then the extraction process begins, here again at any point in the process of developing the image a photographer may circle back or change directions. Once an image is finally developed, then the process of mounting or creating the presentation format for the image begins. What medium should be used to print the image? What sort of framing process will best express what the photograph is communicating? Then finally where will the image be expressed? Is it to be part of a series? The same process goes on I believe whether or not it is expressed virtually or in a formal gallery setting.

In the case of Sally Mann, this process is very tactile and in her archives, both the finished negatives and the discarded negatives are kept. So you can physically see the process through which she has travelled to arrive at a final piece. But with everyone, the process is different, in the case of Albert Watson some of this process may be internalized. However, like Henri Cartier-Bresson, the decisive moment is not about a single capture but more about spending a great deal of time capturing different images in the same place or around the same idea until the decisive moment emerges.

Dorothea Lange | Live Q&A with Sarah Meister and Sally Mann

Sally Meister and Sally Mann, during the time of COVID, discuss photographs and the works of Dorothea Lange in a virtual encounter. I found her advice, during the interview, to new photographs insightful. She begins by suggesting that you can not think your way into a body of work, rather, she says, you need to work rather than think, as waiting for inspiration to come to you does not work. You need to just do the work. The second piece of advice is to be ordinary and organized, be who you are not what you think an artist should be, and this will allow you to be outrageous and original.

Finally, she says: If you do a body of work and you think it is good and you are getting somewhere really quickly start another body of work. So that by the time you finish your first body of work you are not inflicted with “the well has gone dry syndrome.” You are already being seduced by the siren song of the next body of work. So you can let the first body of work go and you can make something entirely different.

https://youtu.be/rQGQwaoyZo8
Dorothea Lange’s Damaged Child, Shacktown, Elm Grove, Oklahoma 1936 was the inspiration for Sally Mann’s Damaged Child ,1984

During the interview, she talks about the principle of micro-mensuration and reflects on its meaning in photography. Heisenberg was measuring subatomic particles by bouncing light or photons off particles, he realized that the photons as they bounced off the particles alter their course and therefore the measurement would be inaccurate. She suggests that this uncertainty principle of micro mensuration applies to photography. Digital cameras measure the photons of light that are bouncing off objects, so why would we not expect the resulting image to alter the scene. Mann goes on to explain that photographs both remind us of a moment in time and also alters our memory of that moment. Even though the photograph is a doorway back into a moment of time it also gives to that moment its own meaning distinct and different from the moment as the photographer remembers it. She goes on suggest that in addition to this change in meaning you are also infusing yourself into the photography, “there is no way to take a picture without imposing yourself on it.”

During the interview, she talks about the derivation of some of her bodies of work and how they come out of bad ideas. In her archive, lots of bad negatives are stored along with the good ones. It is a record of how bad ideas evolved into good ideas, and this will become the subject of her new book. I am looking forward to reading this book.

An Insight from Annie Leibovitz

I have been reading my way through “Annie Leibovitz At Work” and ran across the following passage:
“I didn’t start off thinking that the pictures would be so dark. That look was almost accidental. The first polaroids we took were badly exposed, and I loved them. As soon as you opened up the correct exposure they weren’t interesting. Whatever the meter reading was in the barn, we went down about two stops. The natural light was supplemented by lights that had been designed for music videos. They produced very flight light. The flattest light I’d ever used. As the light hit the body it would fall away, creating soft shadows and almost translucent shapes. I thought it was gorgeous. Very fleshy and strangely green. But there was very little information in the negative. My assistant begged me to get a brighter exposure. He said we could darken the print down later. I hear this all the time, even in digital work. The technician will say, “You can’t exposit like that. There’s no detail It’s blown-out.” But sometimes I want it to look like that. I don’t want to play it safe. And I lose control of the process if I don’t get what I want when I’m shooting. The nudes didn’t have the translucent quality when the film was exposed properly. 

Laetitia Casta, Model, Clifton Pont, Rhinebeck, New York 1999

The passage was a great reminder that sometimes the best photographs happen initially through an error. In this case it showed her something she would never have found if the exposure had been initially correct. Then used this mistake to create a number of images that are very striking and unique.

June Omura, Mark Morris Dance Group, Clifton Point, Rhinebeck, New York (Nude #4), 1999

I think it also says something about being in the moment and reacting to what is in front of you rather than seeking deliberately. You have to be on “Flow.” 

In positive psychology, a flow state is a mental state in which a person performing an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity. In essence, flow is characterized by the complete absorption in what one does, and a resulting transformation in one’s sense of time.

Ann Thomas Truth and Photography

Ann Thomas the Senior Curator of Photographs at the National Gallery of Canada made some interest points about truth in photography as part of her April 21, 2020, virtual presentation and response during the Capture Festival. What I found particularly interesting was her response to a question of how untruthful photography might be in today’s digital world.

Her response to this question was as follows. “Whether digital born or analogue created, the idea that a photograph inherently conveys truth is a misconception. This was confused from the beginning with a recorded image’s ability to appear naturalistic, i.e. to approximate what the human eye sees. This is contradicted by the fact that the act of composing a view is an act of selecting “truth.” The Gustave Le Gray seascape The Great Wave, Sète, 1857, or Henry Peach Robinson’s Hark! Hark! the Lark!, 1882, and William Notman’s Terra Nova, Snowshoe Club, 1875, in The Extended Moment are the results of composing a scene with the use of multiple negatives, and are thus fictions.“

Image manipulation, she is pointing out, is in fact as old as photography itself. Like painters photographs strive to capture the essence of the scene they are looking at and like painters adjust the image to make sure it does so. Even the act of framing a photograph is a process of deciding what is in the image and what is not. In other words, photography is an art form and as such is fiction, after all how can a two-dimension image accurately reflect a three-dimensional scene?

Gustave Le Gray’s seascapes caught with technical difficulties with the collodion process of creating images used two negatives one for the clouds and one for the sea. He did this because he needed different exposure times in order to capture the movement of the waves and the light in the sky. The end result was an image that received high acclaim in London and Paris. To my mind his thinking was not dissimilar to that of any artist, how do I use my tools to create a memorable image. Given he was working with the collodion process in a large format this must have been quite something for its time, given that the process was invented in 1851.

Terra Nova Snowshoe Club on Mount Royal, Montreal, QC, 1875
William Notman (1826-1891)
1875, 19th century
Silver salts on glass – Wet collodion process, composite photograph
20 x 25 cm
Purchase from Associated Screen News Ltd.
II-16262
© McCord Museum

On the other hand William Notman’s photograph was done by staging an event for the camera, by assembling a group had having them pose for the image. Here the photographer was manipulating his subjects so it could create an artistic representation of what a snowshoeing party might have looked like. So it also is a fiction, an artist representation of life in Quebec in 1875.

Windows, Interior and Exterior

Lens/cratch’s latest expose on George Nobechi series of images shot through windows toward an outside view, are devoid of people. The series “Here. Still.” viewed in today’s social distancing environment is especially haunting and yet serene.
http://lenscratch.com/2020/05/george-nobechi/

http://lenscratch.com/2020/05/george-nobechi/

I think it might be interesting to use Nobechi’s series as a concept to create a few images. What is especially interesting about what he is doing is he seems to take the concept of frame with in a frame, and manage to take it beyond a simple farming device. Instead he has, in a number of images, balanced the interior space with the exterior space creating a interesting duality, that forces me to move back and forth between the two creating an emotional tension.

It seems like a perfect challenge for a photograph to see if one can use this idea to create some interesting images, that speak to our current environment.

Goga Bayat

We curated some of Goga Bayat’s photographic work into an international show of photography during the Capture Festival a few years back. The image below is a new capture from a Street Photography curation process by LensCulture.

copyright. Goga Bayat

I have always enjoyed her photographic work it, lyrical and mysterious. Her range goes from abstract compositions through lush still lifes to more formal portraits. Not only is she a professional stills and portrait artist she works in the film industry and is also a novelist.

Her video of some of her stills gives a good idea of her unique style of photography.

In these days of social isolation Goga might serve as a good example of using window captures, to create a series of images.

Photographic Collage

Collaging photographic images has become an interesting hybrid form of art work, with many experimenting with the medium. Nadine Broughton was featured recently in Lens/cratch: Fine Art Photography Daily. As Aline Smithson points out her imagery, using vintage sources, “explores the psychology, politics and polarities of mid-century” US culture.

©Nadine Boughton, A Fractured Atlas

Other artist like Jessie Craig who creates works in photography and film also dedicates some of her time to creating collages like the ones that are above. Here work is very different from Broughton’s work, as it avoids the tradition process of cutting and pasting printed images on a background.

In instagram if you explore any hashtag that starts with #collage you can see a wide range of individuals exploring this method of creating images. One of my favourite contributors is @smallditch. Martha Haversham’s, an interdisciplinary artist has a great instagram feed filled with creative collage images. Her departure from the traditional, buy simply assembling an image, photographing it and the the assemblage is discarded. So the image only exists as a photograph.

Lilac Petal Skirt Collage 2018: Street found petals with paper cut out – Found Fashion cotuture photographic print collection by Mrs Haversham

Both are again quite different from Rauschenberg’s experiments with collage in the 60’s, as you can see from the image below.

 Estate, 1963. Photograph: © Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, New York

This art form was also popular with Braque and Picasso and their work went on to inspire Dadaist to experiment with this image creating method.

Francis Picabia, ‘Tableau Rastadada’ (1920)

Even the Surrealist found this an interesting method to experiment with their “automatic” method using the subconscious , as you can see in the image below.

André Breton, ‘Egg in the church or The Snake’ (Date Unknown)

A Repost of Eric Kim’s List of Masters of Photography

Eric Kim some time ago put together a list of photographic masters, a list to be used to improve your photography. I have reposted this list below, but to see his blog and the original list here is the link.

http://erickimphotography.com/blog/2016/01/27/100-lessons-from-the-masters-of-street-photography/

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I’m going to give you a cheat-sheet of all the masters of photography you need to know:
  • Alfred Stieglitz: One of the original curators and promoters of photography as art.
  • Alec Soth: Famous for large-format color photographs, and his intimacy with his subjects.
  • Alex Webb: Probably the best street photographer working in color, layers, and depth. His best book is “The Suffering of Light” and “Istanbul”
  • Anders Petersen: Soulful, intimate, high-contrast black and white photos (inspired by Daido, and Dutch photographer Ed van der Elsken). A personal favorite of mine.
  • Andre Kertesz: One of the great masters of photography who got discovered late in life. Older than Henri Cartier-Bresson.
  • Ansel Adams: The most famous landscape photographer. Famous for creating beautiful darkroom prints.
  • Araki: Mostly known for his controversial ‘bondage-style’ porn-esque photos of beautiful Japanese women. But probably the most prolific photographer to have lived, publishing several hundred photo books. Him and Daido are the two most famous Japanese photographers.
  • Blake Andrews: Prolific blogger, street photographer, and overall funny guy.
  • Bruce Davidson: Best body of work is ‘Subway’ (photographed the Subway of NYC in the 1980s, shooting color and flash). Probably one of the best color photographers to study.
  • Bruce Gilden: Known for up-close and personal 28mm photos, shot with a flash. In real life, he’s actually nicer than he seems.
  • Constantine Manos: Got recruited into Magnum by Henri Cartier-Bresson, first famous for his ‘Greek Portfolio’ (classic black and white), then transitioned into shooting color photos. Manos taught me.
  • Daido Moriyama: Gritty high-contrast black and white street photos of Tokyo, mostly Shinjuku. Was inspired by William Eggleston.
  • Dan Winters: Probably one of the best writers on photography, portrait photographers, and also very skilled at illustration. I highly recommend his book: “The Road to Seeing.”
  • David Alan Harvey: Another prolific living photographer, he also taught me at a Magnum workshop. Super cool down-to-earth guy, whose no-bullshit approach to life and photography is refreshing.
  • David Hurn: Wrote ‘On Being a Photographer’ which I consider to be one of the best, most practical books on photography. Also Magnum member.
  • Diane Arbus: Known for photographing outcasts of society, in a tender and loving way. I love her portraits, but unfortunately she committed suicide at a young age.
  • Dorothea Lange: Everything you’ve seen from the Great Depression is probably from her.
  • Elliott Erwitt: Funny, ironic, witty photographer. From the similar era as Cartier-Bresson.
  • Eugene Atget: Photographed urban landscapes of Paris, was discovered late in life. Classic photos.
  • Eugene Smith: The most intense photographer who ever lived, his work ethic was incredible. He sought perfection in photography, and pretty much got it.
  • Garry Winogrand: The most prolific street photographer to have lived, incredible work with layers, shooting close and head-on with 28mm lens. Hated being called a ‘street photographer.’
  • Helen Levitt: Intimate photos of mostly kids playing in the streets. Her color street photographs are amazing.
  • Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Godfather of photography, street photography, and coined ‘the decisive moment’ (initially from a poem he read). Almost all contemporary photographers have been influenced by him in one way or another. Advised us not to crop our photos, to always think about composition, and retired photography after shooting 30 years.
  • Irving Penn: Classic portrait photographer.
  • Jacob Aue Sobol: Another great contemporary photographer, close friends of Anders Petersen, shoots very intimate black and white photos of individuals, couples (often having sex). His photos ooze with intimacy and soul.
  • Jeff Mermelstein: Intense street photographer from NYC, great color photographs, and great eye.
  • Joel Meyerowitz: One of the early color street photography pioneers, shot on the streets of NYC with Garry Winogrand.
  • Joel Sternfeld: Famous for large-format color photos (8×10) in America.
  • Josef Koudelka / Part 2: My top-3 favorite photographer, who shot ‘Gypsies’ and ‘Exiles’ (his two great bodies of work). Lived as a vagabond for his entire life, and has stayed true to himself for his entire life. Now currently does mostly panoramic landscape work.
  • Josh White: One of my best friends, who taught me everything I know about ‘Personal Photography.’
  • Lee Friedlander: Funny, wry humor — great self-portraits, urban landscapes, and was one of the big innovators in photography (alongside Garry Winogrand)
  • Mark Cohen: Innovator shooting close-photos with a flash, mostly 21mm, famous for decapitating body parts (in an interesting way)
  • Martin Parr: One of the most prolific photographers living, Alec Soth calls him the ‘Jay-Z’ of documentary photography. Has intense, social commentary through his photos — shoots color and with a flash.
  • Mary Ellen Mark: One of the best documentary photographers to have lived, great photography teacher, and believed that each photo should be a perfect image.
  • Rene Burri: Famous for his compositions, also recruited into Magnum by Cartier-Bresson.
  • Richard Avedon: The most soulful portrait photographer who lived. He was famous, rich, and prolific for his entire life. One of the pioneers shooting portraits with simple white backgrounds.
  • Richard Kalvar: Humorous candid black and white street photos.
  • Robert Capa: “If your photos aren’t good enough, you’re not close enough” (was his motto). Co-founded Magnum with Cartier-Bresson and Chim. Unfortunately died while photographing in battle, by stepping on a landmine.
  • Robert Frank: Photographed ‘The Americans’ — one of the favorite photography books by most modern street and documentary photographers.
  • Saul Leiter: Known for abstract color photos, he photographed beautiful scenes like a painter (he also painted).
  • Sergio Larrain: Mostly obscure photographer, who was the ultimate Zen photographer.
  • Sebastião Salgado: Photographed ‘Genesis’, ‘Workers’, and was a former economist turned photographer. Probably the best humanist photographer.
  • Shomei Tomatsu: Mysterious, surreal, Japanese photographer.
  • Stephen Shore: Famous for 8×10 large-format color photos (similar to Joel Sternfeld).
  • Todd Hido: Poetic contemporary photographer, combines lots of different formats in photography. Very intimate and lovely images.
  • Tony Ray-Jones: Unfortunately passed at a young age, greatly inspired Martin Parr and other British street photographers.
  • Trent Parke: Australia’s finest photographer, with the most hustle and drive out of any photographer I have witnessed. “Minutes to midnight” is his masterpiece.
  • Vivian Maier: Former nanny, but passionate photographer in her time-off. Was discovered by John Maloof, and has achieved great fame (after she died). Humanistic portraits of street people.
  • Walker Evans: One pioneer in the early days of photography, was also photography professor, and his best work was for his street photos and urban landscapes.
  • Weegee: Pioneer using a flash, he photographed crimes, and murder scenes. Probably one of the biggest inspirations for most living photographers (who shoot with a flash).
  • William Eggleston: Mostly mundane photos of ordinary things, photographed in a poetic way. He taught the world that color could be artful in photography, and that any subject (no matter how boring) could be interesting.
  • William Klein: The ultimate badass in photography; he didn’t give a fuck what others thought of him or his technique. Innovative with his use of blur, high-contrast, and grain in his photos. His “New York” book was the best.
  • Zoe Strauss: Amazing contemporary photographer, who gets close to her subjects, talks to them, builds connections with them, and photographs them. She inspired me by reminding me that building connections with your subject is more important than photographing them.

High ISO Noise Reduction by Dierk Topp

Dierk Topp writes about a method of using high ISO bursts and photoshop to reduce noise levels in your handheld night shots. The full article can be found on the Sony Alpha Rumours Site his workflow goes as follows:

  1. I compared the normal shutter with the silent shutter and found a small advantage of the normal shutter
  2. I did not do any editing in LR, only the standard settings (for example sharpening)
  3. I tried to reduce the chroma noise but found, that the results get softer
  4. make sure, that you synchronize all image
  5. load the images into Photoshop as layers
  6. I use Lightroom and export the images to Photoshop as layers.
  7. in Photoshop I select all layers
  8. edit: Auto-Align Layers
  9. layers: smart objects -> convert to smart objects
  10. layers: Smart Objects -> Stack mode -> Mean
  11. crop image to eliminate some empty space at the edges of the camera movement during the shooting
Here is one example of his results, for more detail and more examples I encourage you to go to this article.
Original Image courtesy of Dierk Topp Click here to go to the site.