Littleton Photography Class - Session 6

In our final class we practiced taking pictures of people.  Before going out to photograph, we checked our batteries, memory cards and camera settings.  We took  normal and telephoto lenses, and tripods.

 Lenses sometimes called portrait lenses are usually around 85 mm.  They have enough magnification so that the photographer doesn't have to stand too close to the subject.  Using a wide angle lens and standing close to the subject causes distortion.  You don't want to make your subject's nose bigger and out of proportion to the rest of their face.

Outside we looked for open shade, an area out of direct sunlight but with lots of diffuse light bouncing around.  We talked about bouncing light back into the shadow areas with reflectors.  Commercial reflectors are very handy, but when you don't have one, a white wall, a piece of posterboard, or even a white diaper changing pad can do.

An accessory flash connected to your camera's hot shoe can add more light when necessary.  We also looked for our camera's flash controls, including flash output compensation and fill flash settings.  A great resource for information on taking your flash off of the camera and using it as a portable studio strobe is the website strobist.com.

We talked a little about basic posing and trying to make your subject look as good as possible.  Having your subject face the camera with face and shoulders squarely toward the front has its place, but it's not flattering for most people.  Angling shoulders and heads is usually more pleasing.  If possible, have arms coming away from the body so that there is not one giant mass of arms and torso.

There is a difference between a portrait, where the photographer thinks about things like posing and lighting, and a candid shot, which is usually taken quickly and without much control of the conditions.  Candids are often a part of photojournalism, or of a photojournalistic style of portraiture.  When I was a high school yearbook advisor, I taught my students to capture the actions and reactions of what was happening, and not to take snapshots of people grinning at the camera.

Littleton Photography Class - Session 3

Camera:  We practiced setting the shutter speed in manual mode, or finding shutter speed priority mode.  We found the control for the self-timer.

Terms:  stop - an increment of light.  The difference between a shutter speed of 15 ( one 15th of a second) and 30 (one 30th of a second) is one stop.  The difference between two adjacent apertures would also be called a stop.  Cameras in the 1800s had a piece of metal called a Waterhouse stop that determined the size of the aperture, and therefore how much light came into the camera.  You chose which stop to put into the camera based on how much light you wanted to come in.

A shutter speed of 15 lets in twice as much light as a shutter speed of 30.  A shutter speed of 60 lets in half of the light as a shutter speed of 30.

equivalent exposure- different combinations of apertures and shutter speeds will let in the same amount of light, but there are aesthetic reasons for choosing one or the other.  For example, if I start with an aperture of 8 and a shutter speed of 125, but I want to use a larger aperture for a shallower depth of field, I can change my aperture to 4.  That 's two stops more light.  Therefore, I have to change my shutter speed two stops to 500 to keep my exposure (the amount of light) the same.  If I start with f/8 and 125 again, and want to blur motion, I can change my shutter speed to 30.  Since I have changed my shutter speed to allow two stops more light, I must change my aperture to f/16 to keep the exposure the same.

Remember that aperture determines how large the opening is that allows light to come in.  It also controls depth of field.  Shutter speed determines how long the light strikes your image sensor, but it also determines how motion is recorded.

white balance - one of the properties of light is color.  We experience this every day, but perhaps have not really thought about it.  Morning light is cooler than evening sunset light.  Tungsten lightbulbs give off a warm, yellowish light.  Florescent bulbs give off a cool, greenish-blue light indoors.  Digital cameras have settings to compensate for these different colors of light.

 flash - an artificial light source.  Most cameras come with a built-in flash.  Your built-in flash is often not the best solution.  It produces a harsh light close to the camera lens that makes your subject look flat and without texture.  Often the subject is too bright and the background is too dark.  Accessory flash units that connect to a hot shoe on the top of your camera give much greater flexibility in intensity and direction of light, and can even be used off-camera. A wonderful web site for reading about off-camera flash is strobist.com.

Seeing:   This week, look for motion and light as you take your practice photos. Try to take both frozen action and blurred motion.  Give panning a shot.  Take both high key and low key photos, as well as a high contrast one.  Try a window lit, back lit, and reflection picture.  Have fun!

Motion photo by Carol Luallin        Dice photograph by Amy Parker