Concepts gleaned from this book are:
- Look for the pregnant moment.
- Roland Barthes describes the punctum in a photograph:
The punctum is not a thing in itself, but an effect produced by the appearance of one or more physical facts in an image. It is something felt - a puncture wound, a disruption. The impact, although entirely palpable, cannot be explained. It is what animates an image, and stays visible in our memory.
Ex: One child's bad teeth in a group photo. - Julia Margaret Cameron:
Motivation of the portrait artist is to reveal the distinctive inner qualities of the individual person. - The book is concerned with that which makes a picture come alive. It is the presence of the photographer's thoughtful regard. This characteristic, this something that inhabits a picture, is the felt activity of someone looking, the photographer in person, embedded in the photograph.
- Henri Cartier-Bresson: "the decisive moment." - a mistranslation on the original French title, Images a la Sanvette. A la sanvette meaning "on the run". Also an untranslatable future element involved.
Cartier-Bresson insisted that a 50mm lens was the only focal length appropriate for street photography. - Documentary Photography: The heart of documentary is not form or style or medium, but always content.
- Backgrounds: Photographers and viewers alike tend to pay less attention to what is in the background of a picture because they think it is less important than what is in the foreground. This is a mistake. You should always think of background and foreground as two equal parties to a visual conversation. A background should have something to say, even if it is blank. All backgrounds function as stage sets. It doesn't matter whether the settings are carefully fabricated or found by chance. They should all be treated as constructions, because they are bearers of meaning. They are never neutral.
- Gaylord Herron: "Everything in photography boils down to what is sharp and what's fuzzy."
- Robert Capa: "If it's not good enough, you're not close enough and I keep getting closer and closer."
- Using Flash - Mixing Flash With Ambient Light.Normally with flash photography, the foreground subject is correctly exposed, and everything in the distant background, due to the inverse square law, falls quickly into darkness and murk. In order to remedy this problem, and achieve a result in which the background environment is visible, the camera's shutter has to remain open long enough for the ambient light, along with the flash, to have an effect on the overall exposure of the sensor.
In order to do this, remember that correct flash exposure is the first and absolute requirement. You must set the correct f-stop for the flash exposure. And you must increase the exposure for ambient light by setting a slower shutter speed. If the flash requires f8, for instance, and you are shooting indoors in dim light, this may mean a very slow shutter speed indeed. So be it. The flash, due to its extremely short duration, will freeze any moving subject and create a sharp image by itself, as long as that subject is in focus. If you don't want to create motion blur with a long exposure, then you should use a tripod.
No comments:
Post a Comment