ALL ABOUT PHOTOGRAPHY HISTORY OF PHOTOGRAPHY How It All Came About BASICS OF PHOTOGRAPHY What You Need To Know As A Hobby Or Profession CHOOSING A PHOTOGRAPHY SCHOOL What Factors Should You Consider To Make Sure You Choose The Right School? FEATURING: CHOOSING A SUBJECT IN PHOTOGRAPHY Why Your interest Matters To Your Success?
This document is posted to help you gain knowledge. Please leave a comment to let me know what you think about it! Share it to your friends and learn new things together.
Transcript
ALL ABOUT
PHOTOGRAPHY
HISTORY OF
PHOTOGRAPHY
How It All Came About
BASICS OF
PHOTOGRAPHY
What You Need To Know As
A Hobby Or Profession
CHOOSING A
PHOTOGRAPHY
SCHOOL
What Factors Should You
Consider To Make Sure
You Choose The Right
School?
FEATURING:
CHOOSING A
SUBJECT IN
PHOTOGRAPHY Why Your interest
Matters To Your
Success?
CONTENTS
1. History Of Photography 1
2. Basics Of Photography 4
3. Choosing A Photography School 7
4. Choosing A Subject In Photography 10
5. Finding Photography Online 14
6. Candid Photography 17
1
HISTORY OF PHOTOGRAPHY
Have you ever wondered where modern photography originated?
While we are now moving into the digital age and away from film, the lighting techniques and
other photography techniques began in the 1820’s.
Louis Daguerre and Joseph Niepce were the
first inventors of modern photography.
They used a chemical component from silver
and chalk, which darkens when exposed to light.
This type of technology used a glass negative to
cement the picture.
From the early cameras seen in western films
we have moved on to manual cameras with film.
This film or negative captured the image on a
roll to be developed in a dark room to prevent
over exposure.
1
2 ALL ABOUT PHOTOGRAPHY
The manual cameras used a theory of setting up shots. You had to understand aperture,
shutter speed, white balance, and metering to obtain the best picture possible.
This meant you spent a lot of time setting up the shot and had to be a professional to catch
wildlife in their natural habits.
Aperture is measured by F-stops, or the amount of light the lens will let in.
Focusing and depth of field are also important when setting the aperture on your camera.
You have to know what numbers will allow more light to enter the lens and the converse to
avoid over exposure and blurriness.
Shutter speed is the amount of time a lens is open for the picture.
You may have found in a darkened room without flash your camera takes a while to imprint
the picture on the negative.
This is because the light is dim and the shutter must correct for the lack of light.
The lack of light induces a need to expose the film longer to obtain the picture where as more
light will have the shutter moving at a faster speed.
History Of Photography 3
From the manual cameras we moved into the automatic. The camera became lighter.
The shutter speed and aperture was programmed into the camera by the settings. ISO
became important. ISO is the film speed.
Instead of taking minutes to set up a shot you just had to pick the correct setting and hold
the button down to focus.
Many cameras came as automatic with manual options for those who still liked to treat
photography as an artistic vocation.
Digital cameras are the new era in photography. Now we can see the picture we take
without the use of film and negatives.
We can send the pictures to all of our friends and use our home printers to create prints.
Photography has moved from the concentration of taking the perfect shot with a skill born to
a few to everyone taking pictures.
This is not to say photography and photographers will not remain. There is still the need for
quality in taking professional grade photographs.
Light sensitivity is still important when dealing with a digital camera and unless you spend a
lot, you will find quality of photographs is still missing.
Photograph techniques lay within the lighting provided whether natural or artificial for the
subject.
You might wonder how to create a photograph in a dark room like a museum to share with
your friends and family.
Knowing the past photography techniques will help you in attaining that perfect photograph
with your digital camera.
Photography may have originated with few people, but we can see the advancements their
inventions have led us to now.
2
BASICS OF PHOTOGRAPHY
If you are a sports fan, you know what it means when a team goes into a rebuilding year.
It is just when the owners or coaches decide its time to train new members and correct bad
habits in others.
And invariably,what team leadership says when they go into such a time is that they are
going back to basics.
Sometimes it’s good for us as photographers to go back to basics.
And, of course, if you are just getting started in the world of photography and want to learn
the ropes, the basics are a natural start.
But you want the basics of what the professionals know about the craft of photography.
Anybody can take a picture. I attended a wedding reception where the wedding party left a
disposable digital camera on each table at the reception for guests to snap photos.
4
Basics Of Photography 5
Before the evening was over, it was the children who were running around taking pictures of
everything from the dirty dishes to their own underwear.
These were not photographers and while those pictures will no doubt get a few chuckles,
these are not the kind of professional pictures people want for their long-term memories.
Obviously, the cornerstone of the basics of photography is the camera.
When you see a camera geek walking around with enough equipment on his neck to launch a
space shuttle, you get the impression that cameras are phenomenally complex, more than
mere mortals can grasp.
But look at the professionals and you see them working with portable, relatively easy to
operate cameras.
That is because the basics of running a camera come down to aperture and shutter speed.
Now don’t get nervous about fancy terms. Aperture is just a term for how wide your camera
lens is open to let in light.
And shutter speed is just how long you let the light come in to affect the picture.
For getting a shot of a fast moving event, you want a wide aperture to let in a lot of light but
a short shutter speed so you capture the event quickly and close the window so the picture is
caught before more light hurts the quality.
Photography is really all about light. You can and will get learn a lot about lenses and flash photography and other ways to turn the control over the lighting of a shot to you.
So add to your core skills of photography a willingness to never stop learning.
The better and more sophisticated you get in your ability to work with the equipment, the
more you will learn and the more you will want to learn.
You can get a greater control over these basic controls of the camera such as aperture and
shutter speed by learning how to switch from automatic settings to manual settings.
The automatic settings of any camera are just there for the general public who are not
interested in learning the basics.
So they give you some basic settings like landscape, portrait and sports settings. By
switching to manual, you can learn what settings work best in different situations.
And that takes us to the most important basic about becoming a great photographer and that
is practice.
Take some time with your equipment and play with it.
6 ALL ABOUT PHOTOGRAPHY
Take it to situations and take photos with different aperture and shutter speed settings, in
outdoor and indoor settings and different orientations to light.
Don’t get upset when some shots don’t work.
That’s part of the learning curve.
By learning by doing, you will build your confidence in your work and eventually become a
There are many places you can learn photography, but what is the right place for you?
Sure there are online schools and courses, but they won’t give you the hands on information
you need.
You need other students and the teacher’s eye to become a better photographer. The online
classes do have their uses for instance giving you the basic information to study.
It can be difficult to choose the right school. Some require recommendation while others
don’t.
The information you wish to glean from a photography class will make part of the decision
for you.
For instance in a college setting that does not specialize in photography will offer the basic levels, but may not offer you an internship with a professional photographer in your field.
7
8 ALL ABOUT PHOTOOGRAPHY
If you are looking for photography as a hobby these basic level classes will often give you the
information you need to produce pictures you can be proud of.
Specialized schools as with any others will allow for more information on a specific topic.
Most specialized schools will allow you to work with a professional to learn the specifics of
your profession as well as expand your knowledge.
This helps you learn quicker and learn more about the techniques used in photography while
having hands on experience.
The best way to choose a photography school is to decide what you want from your
photography.
Once you have decided that you can move on to finding out how to apply.
Some photography schools are part of a studio and allow for anyone to sign up for a class.
Other schools require you to attend a college or university first for basic photography and
intern before you go on to the specialized school.
Searching online will lead you to the schools available in your area and across the country.
You will be able to find the application as well as descriptions of every class they offer.
The sites will also list the qualifications you have to attend the school and what classes you
will need to take to become a photographer.
Although the experience you receive from a classroom is better, online classes teach you
what you need to know.
Some classes that you will need to will be in lighting, composition, and other basics.
Depending on your field you will then need to branch out in studying ways to capture the
subject.
Like portrait photography you will need to understand angles, light, balances, and how to
elicit the reactions you need from the subject.
Digital photography is the new way to take photographs and there are a few different
techniques to learn from the older manual cameras.
Photography schools can help you become more adapt at taking photographs.
You may decide you need a little help to step up from being the point and shoot type to a
more complicated camera or you might decide there is a career for you.
There are many types of schools for you and online sources will help you find it.
Basics Of Photography 9
Online photography classes can be helpful for you learning techniques, but you will still want
other people to help you find your eye for art.
If you have worked with manual cameras in the past chances are you will want to take a
digital photography course when you switch.
To touch on one more type of school we need to delve into underwater photography.
Most colleges and other photography schools associated with studios do not specialize in
underwater photography.
It is often best to seek out a dive school for a basic course. You might decide to delve further
and find an underwater photography school.
Underwater photography has always been a unique and interesting hobby or profession.
Seeing the results of your work is like nothing else one can imagine.
When you look at the color and the amazing views, you will understand underwater