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| A framed shot of five street lamps |
Aperture. Shutter Speed. Composition. These words are as
familiar to me as Afrikaans is to an American. This week has seen me leaving my
beloved Radio behind and focusing on photography for our fourth year intensive
course. Yesterday (Tuesday), we had to take our cameras (mine is a beautiful
Canon) out into Grahamstown to complete an obstacle course. I had to try and
see things in a new manner, no longer on the hunt for the best possible audio,
but now getting as close to the ground as possible to take shots of litter and grass!
I had always appreciated a regular ‘point and shoot’ camera,
but our Photojournalism lecturer, Harold Guess expects us to take the camera
off automatic and place it on manual (who does that honestly). This, he says, allows for creativity to
set in. Take for example this shot that I took of cars driving on a street just around the corner from 'The Shire' (our student house). In this shot below, I had to twist a little button (still getting the names right) to make sure my aperture was at its highest (the hole exposing light is open to its widest) to ensure that as much light hit the lense considering it was quite a glum day and evening. Then I had to make sure that my shutter speed was really slow to ensure that lots of light came in. And then I got the shot of 'streaking car headlights'.
*If my terminology is wrong, bear with me, I'm still learning and I will get better! Comments with suggestions would be great*
One of the other obstacles we had to complete was to take a photo of the railway tracks that cut through Grahamstown. I got down quite low for this shot and I do think it is quite a beauty if I say so myself. Check it out below:
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| Taking a close up of Cara (my digsmate) applying makeup |
I chose photography as my intensive to not only learn more about a new and interesting world of media, but to also challenge myself to think differently when telling stories. Radio is spoken and you can hear the emotion in people's voices, you can imagine the world they live in from the background sounds. I would like to think that photography is the same as audio as it snaps up a moment in time, giving you the image of a person's face and their background, but allowing your imagination to fill in all the gaps.
One thing I have realised quite early on in this course is that the manner in which you compose a photo gives you as the photographer a lot of power. It gives you the power to shape the viewer's eye and to take them on a journey. That kind of power, combined with audio needs a lot of attention to detail and a responsible attitude. I think with that in mind and an ability to be aware of what your role as a media practitioner is, I should end up a pretty decent radio/photo journalist. :)
If you have any suggestions of how I can improve my technique, drop me a comment or two!
Nadia xo
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| Ant's view on the world |
Nice pics... although I know nothing of photography, so I can't comment on how to improve ^_^
ReplyDeleteWhy thank you Boothie! How is is on the other side of the world? I'm just chilling in the Radio labs- been missing this dungeon... xo
ReplyDeleteFor portraits, aperture will come into play. You'll want a nice background-plain colour wall(inside the house near a window or door for good light or outside where there's good light), shrubs/hedge, the sky(low angle, shooting up) or a clear open scenic view. Distance your subject from the background, for example a wall, have the subject 5-10 feet away from it and you distance yourself from the subject about 5-10 feet away, depending how much space you have to work in and how far you can distance yourself. I think 5 feet should be ok. Pay attention to your light, you'll want a good amount of light so that you can use a fast shutter speed(prevent motion blur) and in turn a wide aperture. A wide aperture will give you shallow depth of field, that is blur your background to sometimes rid of distracting things in the background(if you're outdoors somewhere busy) and so that focus will be entirely on your subject. Pay attention to distracting objects like poles, branches etc that may creep out of the subjects head. Light should evenly reach your subjects face so make sure the face full on or 3 quarters toward the main light source(sunlight, window light or flash light). To soften direct sunlight or full on flash light, use a diffusion material like see through canvas, the type used on umbrellas or curtain netting. For external flashlight, bounce the light off white cardboard, white walls or ceilings by directing it to face the card, wall or ceiling and the fall off light that reaches your subject should be much softer, making sure that the distance for the light to bounce off a wall or ceiling is not too long. For on camera flash, try a bit of diffusion material just to cover over the flash. Focus on the subjects eyes, reposition your shot if you need to and take the picture. Preferably, use your telephoto/zoom lens. A trick that I recently learnt for portraits( outdoors) is that generally, you can use your palm to determine the light source since it reflects similar skin tones to your face. Hold out your palm facing toward you(this would act as the subjects face and how the light will reach it) and where its nicely lit and bright enough, that will determine a good position to photograph your subject or to determine the quality of light. Like in a shaded area, deep in the shade your subjects face may still be dark even if correctly exposed. Bring your subject just to the edge of the shaded area, but not directly into the light, and the subjects face should be better lit and brighter. Watch out for harsh shadows under the eyes and chin in direct sunlight. Overcast days are good, the clouds act as a diffuser to the source of light i.e the sun.
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