LEARN HOW TO TAKE GREAT PICTURES!
This course will show you the way. An integral part involves you putting into practice what we teach you about film speed, exposure and composition of photographs, and developing your individual photographic style. Photos which you take are carefully considered by professional photographers who advise you on how to improve your photographic techniques.
The broad principles of photography, whether we use film or digital are often the same or similar and in this respect most of what you read in this course will have relevance to both digital or film. Photography is a craft, the techniques and skills of which we must study and practice learn in order to become proficient. Our craft has a new selection of tools which we should master in order to create beautiful, dramatic, informative images. The tools and technology are the means to the end.
This course can be undertaken by users of film or digital technologies.
COURSE STRUCTURE
The content of each of the six lessons is as outlined below:?
- Origins of Photography – Image formation, how light works in photography, lenses, understanding photosensitive materials.
- Understanding Film & Cameras – Parts of film: supercoat, emulsion, backing support, anti-halation layer; film sensitivity. Camera Construction, shutter speed, f stop, ASA/ISO
- The Camera and it’s Use – Camera stability, ways of reducing camera movement, depth of field, filters, fault finding, etc.
- More on using a camera – Flashes (electronic & manual), flash synchronisation, problems with flash photography (eg. red eyes), using a flash in daylight, special lenses, photo composition.
- Photographic Techniques – Planning a photo session, Posing for photos, Snapshots, Water photography, The human form, Portraits, Animals, Action, Landscape & Still Life photography.
- Developing your photographic style
WHAT YOU NEED?
This course can be undertaken successfully without sophisticated camera equipment; however, you do need the use of a camera. An SLR camera is best, but any camera will do. Over the time you do the course, you will need to purchase a minimum of 5 rolls of film, and have them developed. (Cheap proof prints are acceptable, if you are restricted in your finances). All photos you take, and written work you submit will be returned to you.
AIMS
- Describe how light forms an image in a camera.
- Describe how an image can be captured in a camera.
- Discuss how you can work at improving your capabilities with respect to taking photographs.
- Take photos under a range of more complex conditions.
- Improve your technique for taking pictures.
- Analyse your photographic skills and develop an increased consciousness of your own photographic style.
Extract from Course Notes
LENSES
One of the most significant developments in photographic history is the lens. Lenses may have originated when some distant ancestor happened to notice that a rounded crystal they were holding seemed to form an image of the sun on the ground, much the same as a magnifying glass.
The first practical lens for a camera obscura was designed in 1812. The first lens specifically made for photography was produced in 1840. Lenses operate on the principle called refraction: although light moves in straight lines, its rays can be bent (or rather turned onto a different angle), when it passes into a transparent material at an oblique angle.
Practical demonstration of refraction
Take a deep, clear bowl or plastic bucket and fill it with water. Place a long object (such as a knife or pencil) half in the water. You will notice, if you can view the object from other than overhead, that at the surface of the water, the object seems to be bending at the interface of water and air. It obviously is not bending though! Pull it out of the water and you will see it is not bent.
What happens to make it look bent?
- Light does not travel at the same speed through all transparent materials.
- When light illuminating your pencil or knife enters the water, it changes speed (slows down). As it does so it bends, changing direction to a new, straight line course.
- This leads to light being reflected from the object in the water being turned (or refracted), to a different angle before reaching your eyes, which makes the ruler or knife look bent.
The principle of refraction is the basis of all lens design. The degree to which light bends is dependant on two factors:
- The angle the light hits the surface of the new medium which it is being transmitted through (eg: Water, glass etc).
- The type of material the light is entering.
