Photography Article August Photography Book Club: week 3|Photography Artist Statement

It's week 3 of the August Photography Book Club and our take a look at of Freeman Patterson's Photography and the Art of Seeing. Catch up by means of reading any of the following or simply bounce proper in from here.

• Overview about the Book Club
• Summary and exercises from week 1
• Reflections and photographs from week 1
• Summary and exercises from week 2

If you don't have access to a copy of the book, you can still join in by participating in the exercises and reflections below. If you do have the book, you'll have a lot more material to draw upon and work with.

Inviting through Archaeofrog on Flickr

Taken for week 2's concept of starting from a theme or idea and then seeking out a subject matter to express that theme. To see more what others have been coming up with, take a look at the photographs on the Flickr group page or tagged bookclub-seeing1 and bookclub-seeing2.

Week 3 will recognition on numerous smaller sections in the book: Unique residences of images, How a camera sees area, Thinking about Visual Design, and Elements of Visual Design: Tone. Below, I've provided some quotations that struck me from those sections and some recommendations for sporting activities. (All web page numbers check with the 2011 edition.)

Unique Properties of Photography and How a Camera Sees Space

Patterson starts by evaluating and contrasting pictures to other artwork bureaucracy, both -dimensional and three-dimensional, and attracts up a listing of what he calls the "six fundamental characteristics of the photographic medium that distinguish it from different visible media" (pg. Eighty three). These can be kind of summarized as

1. With photography, you have "an already existing object in front of your lens" (pg. 84).
2. "Photography has the capacity to render detail with a precision no other visual medium can match" (pg. 84).
3. Photographers must act with the right timing for the moment or the image.
4. Photographers have the potential to 'stop the world' with the speed of their exposures.
5. Photography has a "special connection with chance" (pg. 85) but can still prepare to 'be lucky.'
6. Photography is dependent on light. "One might say that a photographer paints with light" (pg. 86).

Patterson then moves into a discussion of how a camera can perceive a scene differently that we do with our eyes and warns that photographers must "be sensitive to any elements that will not be recorded as the eye perceives them" (pg. 88).

Using a slow shutter with a light source like the steel wool here allows you to capture a moment unlike what your eyes would be able to perceive. Read more about How to Spin Fire with Steel Wool.

Try to exploit one or more of these fundamental characteristics this week in your photography. See how 'stopping the world' (using a fast shutter speed) can change your perception of a scene or contrast with how you saw it with your eyes. (Here are some examples from the recent technique challenge of fast shutter speed.)

Using a quick shutter allows you to freeze a second in time which you couldn't examine quick sufficient with your eyes. Carefully timing and a healthy dose of success captured this massive drop simply because it fell.

Falling Water Drip Reflection by way of Archaeofrog on Flickr Or, test with shooting speedy moving or rapidly changing topics in burst mode (numerous pix at once). Take a while to take a seat down and examine each picture. Does one stand out as a better 'lucky' capture than another? What are you able to analyze from that approximately capturing exactly the instant in best one shot?

Thinking about Visual Design and Tone

"A photographer works with sorts of visual layout ? The layout she [or he] observes in her [his] concern matter, and the design she [he] creates in her [his] image by the manner she [he] arranges the problem be counted" (pg. One zero one).

Patterson differentiates among ornamentation (frills and extras) and layout (aim in composition) and demanding situations us to simplify our pictures through questioning the necessity of what we have determined to include inside the body. Try to attract this difference for your own photographs this week. Can you dispose of the 'embellishes' to recognition simply at the layout? Share what you modified while trying this method (or even a 'earlier than' and 'after' evaluation). What did you eliminate and why?

Patterson's segment on tone focuses in on mild, along with both the quality (harshness or softness) and the path (frontlighting, sidelighting, and backlighting) of that mild. Light is then discussed in its dating to line, shape, texture, and perspective. Try to experiment with light this week. Take a chain of photographs changing the course of the light (front, side, and returned) by either shifting your mild source or transferring your self. See how this changes your picture. Or, discover the concept of perspective: play with changing sharpness, relative size, relative vicinity, or the obliqueness of objects in your pics to look how their visible relationships exchange. You ought to even attempt a 'forced angle' shot or an optical phantasm by way of manipulating these relationships.

This photo indicates the impact of aspect lights: harsh shadows and lack of element at the unlit side.

One Light Portrait, Side Lighting by Archaeofrog on Flickr Multiple Ways to Join the Book Club

Want to participate? Post a comment together with your thoughts or a hyperlink to a photo you have taken for the Book Club and an evidence of ways the e book encouraged your photograph. Or, you could put up snap shots and make contributions to the discussion by becoming a member of the Photography Book Club Group on Flickr.

Parting phrases for the week: "Critics who scorn the 'fortunate' chance of a photographer are suggesting an twist of fate takes area whilst a photographer captures a unique occasion that lasts for best a moment, but it's miles no twist of fate if the photographer anticipates the occasion and knows the way to use his [or her] gear ? A photographer has to wish for and put together for 'fortunate' danger" (pg. Eighty five).