25-03-2012 Inspiration

Workshop One - Location       25-03-12

Belinda Pratten                          Week Seven                                  Semester One

Documentary Photographer Carla Coulson

For this task we have been asked to write a small segment about a documentary photographer. I have chosen Carla Coulson, although Carla is not considered a ‘documentary’ photographer by professional terms, I believe she is as she documents her life.

 I have a book of Carla’s which will support my discussion around her techniques and styles of photography, my first example is Carla’s photographer of the boys working in the market in Kanchipuram India, in her small explanation of the image she talks about how she was asked to take a photo of these boys who had been working very hard I the smouldering heat, lifting hessian sacks full of fruit and vegetables onto the truck. They ran over very excited and flamboyantly and asked her to take their picture, but as soon as the camera was pulled out, their mood obviously changed. You can almost see right through into these boy’s souls, they stand there for the picture looking proud and strong, holding hands with their ‘friend’, this creates the image that they are untied and stronger together. It seems as though Carla took her time to stop and carefully compose this image she has used a neutral style background and placed her subjects in the middle of the frame, outlining that they are the soul focus of the image. There are no other distracting ‘props’ or factors left in the picture, the viewer is directed right into the boys eyes and souls, wondering what other parts of their story have been left un told.  

All of Carla’s images use similar styles having plain subdue backdrops, so as not to distract the viewer from the subject. Carla has a natural talent with photographing people in their own atmospheres and portraying their story in such an intriguing way, she often uses black and white and the eyes of her subject has strong main focus for the image. Every portrait she takes, it seems as though there is a story to be told about her subject, and I admire her ability to do so.

Carla travelled around many countries after leaving her corporate job, and travelled photographing her travels around the towns and cities.

20-03-2012

Workshop One - Location       20-03-12

Belinda Pratten                          Week Six                            Semester One

·         Blogs – you need LOTS of pictures

·         Look for the centred template

·         Check that all links work

·         The ideal shutter should 

·         expose each part of the film/sensor equally and simultaneously

·         be silent in operation

·         be vibration free

·         little effort to set in motion

·         effective exposure should be repeatable

·         …it does not exist

·         Faster speeds require the second curtain to closely follow the first creating an increasingly narrower ‘slit’ traveling across the sensor.

·         Focal Plane (FP) shutter - limitations

·         flash should only operate when shutter is fully open

·         ‘flash’ synchronization is therefore limited 

Information is recorded bottom to top

·         Between The Lens (BTL) or Leaf shutter

·         operates between lens elements

·         must be ‘cocked’ during lens attachment/removal

·         max speed of 500th sec

·         synchronises with electronic flash at ALL speeds

·         most medium format cameras

·         perfect shutter open instantly, closes instantly

·         efficiency is affected at high speeds

·         at 500th a greater proportion of the time is used to open and close the shutter so exposure is actually less than expected

·         often 400th is used, inefficiency reduces exposure closer to that of ideal 500th sec

·         shutter opens and closes at the same rate regardless of shutter speed chosen

·         shorter time to uncover a small aperture

·         longer time to uncover a large aperture

·         Panning is a continuous semi circle movement

·         The Diaphragm

·          In optics, a diaphragm is a thin opaque structure with an opening (aperture) at its centre.

·          The role of the diaphragm is to stop the passage of light, except for the light passing through the aperture.

·        

Intensity y

Time 250

DOF definition

·         The region of acceptably sharp focus around a subject
position, extending toward the camera and away from it,
from the plane of sharpest focus. 

The boundaries of depth-of-field are referred to as the
near limit (d1) and the far limit (d2).

                                                        Davis - Photography, 5th Ed.

·         Depth of field is increased by:

·           using smaller apertures

·           using larger subject distances

·           using wider angle lenses

·         Large aperture- smaller DOF

·         Small aperture – larger DOF

·         Lens focal length 70mm longer less DOF

·         Lens focal length 20mm wider more DOF

·         Copy work you should use around f.11

·         Architectural work around f.32

·         Automatic diaphragm

·         stays fully open until shutter release is pressed, then…

·           diaphragm closes down to preset aperture.

·           shutter opens and closes.

·           diaphragm opens up fully again.

·           why?

·           too dark if stopped down during focusing

·         Depth of field preview

·         If diaphragm is at max-aperture during viewing then
extent of depth of field cannot be seen.

·         All cameras have a depth of field preview function.

·         Actuate this and the diaphragm stops down to the preset
aperture so that you can see the depth of field present
for that aperture.

·         Automatic Diaphragm

·         Maximum aperture until shutter is released

·           Diaphragm closes down to chosen aperture.

·           Shutter opens then closes.

·           Diaphragm opens to maximum again.

·           Why is this function necessary?

·           At small apertures not enough
light passed for the eye to view/focus

·         Blog – Hyper focal distance

·         Visit Elearn to find 10 questions

·         Digital Capture

·         Sensor array type

·         CCD (charge-coupled device)

·           CMOS (complementary metal oxide semiconductor

·          Sensor Array’s – pixels

·         millions of sensors (photosites)

·           each sensor = one pixel (picture element)

·           Nikon D200 10.2 million pixels

·         From highest number to lowest

·           total pixels:                               total on sensor including inactive ones

·           effective pixels:      active pixels and any ignored pixels
                                        used eg. to establish blacks

·           active pixels:                            effective pixels less ignored pixels

·           recording pixels:     the pixels in your image.

·         Nikon D200

·           total pixels:                               10.92 million pixels

·           effective pixels:      10.2 million pixels

·           active pixels:                            no data

·           recording pixels:     10.04 million pixels

·           each sensor/photosite records a level of light but NOT its colour

·           known as a RAW greyscale capture

Intensity y

 

                                                                                                                                                   

·         Where does the colour come from?

·         RGB filter array above sensors (Bayer pattern- Bruce E Bayer, Kodak, 1976)

·        
RED filter:                                                                                                                passes only red light

·         GREEN filter:                                                                                                          passes only green light  (extra green sensors = human vision)

·         BLUE filter:                                                                                                              passes only blue light

·         RGB of subject is recorded as 3 separate parcels of data

·         camera ‘decoder ring’ stores data as a number representing each colour

·         Interpolation?

·         camera RAW CONVERTER interpolates data to build greater number of pixels in final image (known as de-mosaicing)

·           the three packets of data representing the RGB components are  compiled to form a full colour image.

·         RAW file capture

·         camera captures a RAW GREYSCALE image

·           ‘decoder ring’ records colour information.

·           RAW converter interpolates ‘missing’ pixels

·           RAW converter creates a RAW RGB file

·           so what’s the big deal about a RAW file?

·           all cameras capture RAW greyscale and convert to RGB

·           simple cameras automatically produce JPEG

·           pro camera gives options, RAW and/or JPEG

·         JPEG

·           calculates minimum data for adequate image

·           dumps unnecessary data

·           manipulation of file is limited

·           saving = data compression = further data lost

·           reopening = interpolates to re-establish file

·         RAW

·           all data is retained

·           infinite adjustments possible - no loss of data

·           adjustments in RAW are not permanent

·           save copies in other formats

·           original RAW retained

·         general term for a range of proprietary file formats, eg.

Canon:                                                                                                                                  CRW and .CR2
Minolta:                                                                                                                               MRW
Olympus:                                                                                                                             ORF
Nikon:                                                                                                                                   NEF
                                                                                                                                   

·           each manufacturer has slightly different RAW converters but all
   produce similar files with similar possibilities.

·           your processing or editing/manipulation software must be able to
   read your camera’s RAW file format.

·           Digital Negative (DNG)
   universal raw format to future-proof your files.

·         What else does a raw converter do?

·         applies a pre-set white balance (stored in METADATA) not permanent

·           applies a colour value to each pixel - ideally based on human vision

·           applies adjustments so that tonal range distribution more closely
   corresponds to human vision.

·           applies pre-set noise reduction, shadow areas, particular high ISO

·           applies pre-set image sharpening - no camera sensor array is perfect

·           applies pre-set anti-aliasing to adjust edge effects in image

·           These can also be adjusted within the processing/editing software.

·         What is RAW processing

·         Making adjustments (yours or clients) and saving to a particular
   file format in known as processing.

·           eg. white balance, colour space, sharpening etc. and then saving
   preferred file format, TIFF, JPEG etc.

·           Processing software can be proprietary such as;

Canon Digital Photo Professional
Nikon Capture NX
Phase One’s Capture One
Hasselblad’s Phocus

·           or general such as;

·         Photoshop, Lightroom, Apple’s Aperture

·         Silver FX pro – black and white

·         Presethaven.com – free presets for lightroom

·         Presets – User presets

·         Don’t use the following on your images

·         Heavy vignetting

·         Colour cast

·         Over sharpening

·         Saturation

·         Documentary Photographers

·         Chronicle, significant and historical events

·         Truthful objective and usually candid photography

·         Social (comment on society)

·         Photojournalism

·         Street

·         Celebrity

·         Sally Mann

·         Henri Cartier Bresson

·         Robert Capa

·         Robert Frank

·         Kevin Carter

·         Robert Doisneau

·         Dorothea Lange

·         Subscribe to Magnum Photography

·         Harold Cazneau

·         Max Dupain – the sunbaker

·         David Moore

·         Diane Arbus

·         Modern documentary photographers

·         Assignment 1 inspiration handed out

·         Assignment 2 Proposal for folio handed out

·         Location folio Documentary handed out

·         Wild light

·         Occuli

·         Magnum