Photography skills
Aperture
Aperture Is the size of the hole that light passes through while taking a photo. The higher the aperture the less light gets through and the lower the aperture the more light gets through. You would change the aperture you shoot with to change the overall exposure of the image. If shooting in low light conditions you would want a lower aperture so that more light gets in as the hole that light passes through is larger. The opposite is the case for shooting in conditions with high light levels. Changing the aperture changes the exposure and if the aperture is too high then the image can be under exposed and if the aperture is too low then the image can be over exposed. Most dslr cameras have a light sensor letting you know the ‘optimal’ light conditions for shooting your photos. This is known as a balanced exposure and can be the best however photographers may under expose or overexpose images on purpose. I did this for my initial project as I underexposed images as the harsh sunlight meant that I couldn’t take photos with the whole subject in detail so I chose to underexpose the image by raising the aperture leading to the dark areas under the bridge on my image becoming much darker.
Aperture is measured in f stops the higher the f stop the smaller the hole for light to pass through.
My camera ranges from f2.8-f8 which is a smaller range then most cameras as it’s a bridge camera. This photo was taken at f3.5 and as my cameras light reader read it being +2 on the light sensor meaning it was over exposed. These are the settings I used while shooting this photo of a mannequin.
For this photo I changed the aperture till my cameras light sensor read 0.0 meaning it was a balanced exposure so I took the photo I shot it on f4.
For this photo I underexposed my image by changing the aperture to f8 meaning the light ready read -2 meaning the image was underexposed. I shoot a lot of images underexposed as I feel they being out the highlights and the shadows if done well drawing attention to them and away from the mid tones.
these four photos are all taken at different apertures to show the effect changing the aperture has. because my camera has a low range of f stops i could not overexpose the image on the light metre past +1 as my camera only shoots to 8f but i was able to underexpose it till the light metre read -2. these four images were shot for this. i chose the simple subject to show the difference that changing the aperture has on the image as when its -2 like on the light metre the bottom right where only a small part of the roof the light is on is visible.
these three photos of a more complex subject show how even in natural lighting changing the aperture can be important as the photos from right to left are shot
-2, 0.0, +1
i have shot these at different apertures and to show how when overexposing the image you loose the highlights. out of these three images i prefer the slightly underexposed one as the other two seem to light and there isn't much contrast in the image. I feel under exposure also fits the aesthetic of grimy black and white photographs. I am happy with how the underexposed one turned out as I like the composition and I feel like in a situation where I wasn’t shooting for a project on aperture I would’ve only shot this one as it fits the aesthetic I enjoy photographing the most.
I took these three photos changing the aperture every time while keeping the light metre reading the same +1.3. I did this by changing the iso and the shutter speed this led to three slightly different images as although the light metre read the same changing the exposure in different ways has different effects on the luminosity of the image and other parts. These were my first ever photos of with a person as the subject and my first attempt at portrait photography and because of this I’m happy but I would find more interesting ways to create a composition in the future I think as it feels quite plain at the moment.
contextual examples
Mark power
In this image mark power has overexposed the image to make the Snow White and the overcast grey sky blend into hill in the background. This draws attention to the bright colourful petrol station which is the focus on the image as it stands out from the white and greys of the background.
John blakemore
This is an example of a balanced exposure being used to get the darks of the shadowed while still retaining the light of the highlights. Balanced exposure is the best for shooting landscape as it gets the most detail in while still retaining contrast.
Daido moriyama
in this photo daido moriyama underexposed the image to switch the focus to the bright neon lights in his image. By underexposing the image the lights have a lot of detail and the areas where the light touches has more detail whereas the areas of shadows and even the midtones is completely black or very dark with very little detail. This works well for nighttime photography or photography inside of buildings like for my second example where I have taken a photo of the fluorescent lights.
Shutter speed
shutter speed is the length of time that the speed the shutter closes measured in fractions of a second. the larger the number the smaller the fraction of a second so the quicker the photo is taken. the slower the shutter speed the more light is left in the image.
i have taken three photos of a fan all at different shutter speeds from left to right fastest to slowest. This is because In some I wanted to capture the movement of just the fan in others no movement whatsoever and in others I wanted to capture movement in the fan and the tassels as the fan was the fastest moving object but the tassels were still moving. I would’ve liked to have a longer shutter speed on my photos as my camera only starts from 1/4 of a second however goes all the way up to 1/4000 so it’s good for a still photograph but not as good for capturing slight movement in images. I also struggled exposing the photos well as my cameras aperture is also limited however I purposefully tried to underexpose the image as I enjoy shooting underexposed more then a balanced exposure as it fits my shooting style more I feel like. My favourite photo from these three is the one with the most movement which was shot at 1/10 of a second as it captures the movement of the fan blades and the tassels well without the subject becoming too blurry and not being able too see what the subject is properly. Because of my cameras limited shooting capabilities I haven’t shot a full blur image as I couldn’t get a slow enough shutter speed. The shooting capabilities have also led to my photos getting small amounts of noise from the iso.
Contextual examples
Freezing
Harold edgerton
An example of a freeze photograph is this photograph of a milk droplet. Why this photo is so interesting is it’s frozen something we never see with our own eyes as it takes place too quickly for our eyes to register it. This type of photography can work for many things such of sports photography or other work where the photographer has to work quickly to capture the moments they want took
Subject blur
John blakemore
this type of photography has only the subject in motion. The example I’ve chosen is by John blakemore which is a photo of trees where the branches have been shook by the wind but the trunks haven’t moved much if at all so they stay sharp and defined whereas the branches and the canopy of the trees are hazy i really like this as it’s like he photographing the trees and will be something I try when I go on my shoot working with shutter speed.
Full blur
Full blur is one of the hardest ones to pull off while still keeping your photo looking good and having a clear subject. This type of photography is much more abstract something I don’t like as much in photography as I feel photography is about documenting the world and life in photos and to be honest most full blur photos I don’t like as they don’t really show anything more then colour. This example I do like as the phone box is still visible and the blur adds a sense of chaos to an empty image as there are no people visible in the photo.
freeze
for this image i decided to take a photo of a flag that was being blown in the wind. i chose to freeze this as i found the building behind it quite interesting and originally i wanted this to be my image for subject but because of my cameras limited aperture i wasn't able to raise the shutter speed very high without over exposing the image which i didn't like doing as it didn't fit my vision for the photo.i am happy with the slightly underexposed image as i took as i feel it is interesting. i'm the future i would maybe work on focusing the image as i use manual focus and the image is slightly blurry which i'm unhappy with but overall im happy with the image.
subject blur
while outside i was struggling to shoot subject or full blur because my cameras shooting ability meant that it was super overexposed so i shot this out of my bedroom at night instead and shot it very underexposed so only the and reflections were visible on the image. i shot this at 1/10 shutter speed. I am happy with this image as i had been struggling to take a good photo while using a low shutter speed and I like this image although it isn’t super creative. I shot it in black and white as I am confident shooting in black and white and while trying new things I want to minimise the factors I have to deal with.
full blur
I struggled the most with creating an in steering full blur image as it’s much more abstract then what I usually work with. To get this effect I shot on a low shutter speed and slightly panned my camera from left to right to create an illusion of movement. I didn’t shoot this on as fast of a shutter speed as my camera can go so that I could instead have a balanced exposure to get the shadows and highlights of tree so that there was at least some kind of idea in what my subject was. I am happy with this as I don’t normally shoot abstract photos so for my first time going out and trying it I am happy with the results as I feel the image is interesting due to the high contrast in the image.
Second shoot
Freeze
For this second set of photos where I have focused on adjusting the shutter speed I decided to try photograph a bird so I went to Doxey marshes as I knew there were birds there. I’m not sure what type of bird this is but I think it’s a heron and it was sitting on the riverbank trying to catch fish and was hard to photograph so I used a fast shutter speed to freeze it and capture a clear image with little to no blur I am the most happy with this image I took even though I took about 20 of the same bird as I like the composition with the small river in the background and the birds position. I used a balance exposure to capture as much detail as I could in the images shadows aswell as it’s highlights.
Subject blur
I chose to take a photo of a train as I had struggled with getting the right exposure while shooting subject blur for my photos and a way I could combat this would be by taking a photo of something that is moving very fast as I would not need to make my shutter speed as fast as if I was taking a photo of a person or a bird to capture the motion of the subject. I chose this composition as it had the best positioning of the train something I didn’t have much control over as I just had to shoot as fast as possible as it was moving to fast to get the right position on every photo I took. Because of this aswell as issues with exposing the photo this was quite a hard photo to take.
Full blur
This is the only colour photo I have selected so far and I have done this as I feel like the black and white image which I also shot is too abstract and you can’t tell what it is at all whereas in colour it’s more obvious that’s it’s a river. I shot this on a fast shutter speed to capture the movement of water and it’s created an effect of the image being very smooth. This Isn’t really a full blur image as I kept my hand still while I took this but the image is 95% moving and I couldn’t take a decent photo of full blur as I struggle with that. I am happy with how this image turned out as I had been struggling with exposure as I was shooting in the day and it was very sunny when I was shooting which made it hard to expose correctly.
ISO
iso is the sensitivity of the cameras sensor. It one of the three factors used to expose an image and has control over the luminance of your image which is especially important when shooting subjects that are lit by artificial light. However if you use too high of an iso your image becomes noisy creating blur so it’s always best to keep the iso as low as possible and compensate with the other two exposure settings although some photographers like using high iso to create a graininess and grittiness to their images.
this graph demonstrates the effect that raising the iso has on the photo causing more noise and the effect is has on certain parts of a photo and why a photographer should try to keep the iso as low as possible if they are doing nature sports or even documentary photography but if they are going for a more gritty/ stylistic image they can shoot with a high iso to make the noise/ grain add to the grittiness of the image. An example of a photographer doing this is daido moriyama who shoots very underexposed images which sometimes are out of focus and are often quite noisy.
I feel this langes shows this well as it’s gritty in parts and feels very stylistically unique compared to other portraits by other photographers because of it. I personally like this style of work as it doesn’t fit what is traditionally a good photo as it isn’t the highest quality photo moriyama could’ve taken but is almost elevated by the stylistic choices he made while shooting. This may be something I try in the future while shooting my own images.
Depth of field
Depth of field is about how much of the image is in focus which is determined by the focal length of the lense and the aperture that it is shot on. It is used by photographers in many situations such as in landscapes where a deep depth of field creating a sharp image is normal and documentary style photography as both don’t wish to alter how we see the world instead wanting to capture it as they see it. Some people who would want a shallow depth of field is Macro photography of small subjects such as individual pieces of food or in other cases to highlight a subject while creating a blur in the background such as sports photography and others where the background may take away from the photo such as photography of cars.
24mm standard lense
iso:6400 aperture:29f
the top photo here is taken at the maximum aperture that the camera i was using allowed which i had borrowed from collage. i shot this on 29f stops so because of this to shoot at the exposure i wanted to at -1 on my light metre. because of this i shot this with a very high iso which has created a nice grain/noise effect which although makes it a traditionally low quality image but i feel it adds character.
iso:200 aperture: 5.6f
10mm lense
iso:200 aperture: 5.6f
the top photo I took on the minimal aperture the camera I was using went too and because of this there was a lot of light so to correctly expose it I used a fast shutter speed and the lowest iso I could. Because of the images low iso it is very clear. This is unlike the photo below where I used the highest aperture so I had to take it on the highest iso I could which ended up with the photo coming out noisy which is most noticeable in the reflection of the light from the window on the table. I like this for the same reasons I like the other images on high iso becuse they are quite gritty however I feel this is the least effective version as the subject itself seems unchanged by the iso.
Iso:6400 aperture:22f
18mm lense
iso:6400 aperture: 29f
In this photograph I have used a high aperture so because of this to correctly expose the photo to -1 on the light metre I had to use a very high iso which led to the photo being very noisy. This lense even though more focused on the subject still gives an image with the whole subject in a similar level of focus but isn’t too zoomed in on the subject.
In the photo below I shot it with a low aperture so used a low iso as shooting with a low iso is the best for getting an image of a consistent quality as the higher the iso the worse the noise in the image gets. And unless shooting gritty images I feel like noise isn’t needed for creative use. I like both of these photos but feel the lense isn’t the best for portrait photography
Iso:200 aperture: 5.6f
50mm lense
Iso:800 aperture:1.8
this was my favourite lens to shoot this style of portrait photography on as when shooting it with low aperture and low iso it the subject is very isolated from the background this is what I’ve done for the top photo.
For the bottom photo I shot it at a high iso and aperture so because of the aperture the background is in focused and not blurred like when I shot with a low aperture. I feel like different lenses and different apertures can be used to shoot portraits in different ways which are all good but different depending what the individual photographer wants to portray in their photos.
Iso:6400 aperture:22f
.
I Shot the first image at the lowest aperture my camera shoots at and the other at the highest it would shoot at changing the shutter speed so that I would get the correct exposure however because of my cameras limited shooting capabilities there isn’t much of a difference when it comes to depth of field however using the equivalent to a 70mm lens allowed me to achieve having the majority of both photos blurred while keeping the subject sharp and in focus. I understand what changing the aperture to a larger extent would do however from my shooting task inside of collage when I borrowed different lenses and shot photos on a borrowed camera changing the aperture to understand the effect.
extensive depth of field
Ansel Adams
some photographers such as ansel adams shoot super extensive depths of field so they can capture every last part of an image. This is used in photography with the goal of documentation such as landscape photographers who want to
Capture every last detail of a photo. Ansel adams is a very famous American photographer who shot landscapes of the wilderness in America as it was disappearing on a camera with an aperture of f64. This meant that his image was super sharp and detailed allowing him to capture the photograph exactly how he saw the location.
Sally Mann
This style of photography is used to highlight subjects in photographs by blurring the backgrounds. Is a large format black and white photographer from America. Her focus is on her children and them at different stages of growing up and then after they grew up she shifted to landscapes which portrayed death and decay. In this photo she highlights the young girl who is pretending to smoke and the one who is standing looking into the distance by using a shallow depth of field isolating the subject. She also underexposes the image which highlights the girl wearing the white dress even more.
