Category Archives: Reading Assignment 11am

Reading Response 2: Light and Shadow

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I appreciated the Allegory of the Cave reference that Plato attributed to the “unknown”, and the way it caught my interest as a chapter opening. The common theme in the reading, that light is mysterious and partially a void, reminds me what photographer Diane Arbus stated, “A photograph is a secret about a secret. The more it tells you, the less you know.” This mysterious quality to light and shadows is so intriguing, and has kept our interest since photography’s beginnings. I like what photography historian John Bloom wrote about shadows, saying “…Belief in their magical powers was connected to their sun-origin and their ability to evoke significant form.” I had never really thought of shadows as similar to negative space, and I found this connection really interesting. I also enjoyed reading about the typical symbolism between light and dark, the good and evil references we associate with tones.

Reading Response: Light and Shadow

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I found these reading sections really interesting due to the fact that they brought up many concepts in history and in our natural world that I have never really thought about, especially through the perspective of photography. The practice chapter was an excellent and thorough review of lighting, which I found really useful. Breaking down the techniques, types of light and their effects is useful and I am excited to use them myself to manipulate light. The part about filters was also a great tool. I have never had much training within a lighting studio setting before, so learning each piece of equipment and the parts was interesting. I found the theory chapter to be the most intriguing and inspiring. I learned more about Talbot and Daguerre then in most of the art history classes I’ve taken, so it was great to read different information about each photographer and more specific parts of their discoveries. I really enjoy how this book does a great job of connecting the science, art, and history along with the technical info of each topic covered. Also it features great artist examples, such as, Olafur Elisson’s “The Weather Project,” which I found to be really fascinating and inspiring. I am taking astronomy at the moment, so I would love to be able to experience a mock up of the sun and be able to be so engulfed in a room of light like that. I think it could be interesting to experiment with different concentrations of various types and colors of light in the future. Overall, I found the history review from Plato all the way to group f/64 useful and informative and I am excited to explore the properties of light and its effects more and more.

Writing Response – Light and Shadow

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The readings explain how lighting is important as a texture and as mood for photography. Light is generally associated with everything good, holy, and innocence while darkness is essentially bad. Much of the chapter deals with classic film Noir due to its original take on light. The use of light in noir creates stark contrasts where much of the shadow becomes important information to the viewers.

I never thought of light as a modern tool, the idea that sharp shadows can create a sense of modernism due to the type of light cast by a light bulb. Softer shadows on the other hand, can have a more natural feel to the photo.

I personally find it strange that some photographers go through so much trouble trying to manipulate the lighting of a photograph such as in Hot Shot Eastbound at laeger, West Virginia by O. Winston Link. I feel that trying to force so much control over an outdoor shot makes the photo feel odd and unnatural.

The practice section was rather informative. I’ve read a quick tutorial by Marcus Ranum on how he does his stock photographs and how he sets up his studio. The chapter filled in the gaps such as direction of light and how it can affect mood and the importance of side lighting.

I’ve noticed the difference of whites in different light settings but did not think about how drastically color can change as well in different settings.

 

If you haven’t seen Marcus’s tutorials, it’s basically the chapter in a nutshell.

http://mjranum-stock.deviantart.com/gallery/?q=tutorial#/d1yo7vk

Reading Response

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Practice 2: Light & Shadows (Tools, Materials, and Processes pg 137-163)

The basis of photography is the transformation of light into an image. Both light and image are fluid fluctuating forms. Super cool to learn the origin of photography (or at least its foundational concept) and painting came about when a woman dew the outline of her lover’s shadow… first act of fixing light into image. Photography has everything to do with the manipulation of light (which is proving to be a tricky thing to master!). Path of light is determined by choices of level and direction. Light can be manipulated to flatten or shape objects and/or people; this can influence the visibility, mood, point of focus, distraction, provide sense of time, season, and/or era. Objects within a scene (called terminal points) also provide opportunities to play with light- they can influence the pathway of light, creating shadows, mirrors, texture, contrast, texture and whatever else one might achieve. The direction of the light source can have a great impact on depiction of the subject and/or the objects within a shot (how they appear, texture, contrast, etc.). This depends on the light source is directed at the subject and the location of the viewer or camera watching the scene. I found the discussion on The Path of Light: Color of Light (pg 147) particularly interesting. Objects appear to be certain colors due to their own coloring AND the color of the light falling on them. Light color varies depending on source and colors light must pass through before reaching its destination (color temp. of light measured using Kelvin scale). I didn’t know that ‘standard daylight’ refers to the sun at noon, a cool blue light (measuring around 5500K). I would assume that this changes due to season as well as geographical location. I wonder if there is an ideal location on the globe for photographers…a place where every season brings different, contrasting qualities of natural light to work with.

Reading Response

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Theory 2: Light & Shadow (pg 109-136)

I like Plato’s metaphor a lot: the shadow as a metaphor for the incomplete, and (according to Plato) therefore flawed, nature of human knowledge. I never considered the significance of shadows before, yes they do provide us with information about the world (or information we infer) and I suppose they are somewhat ‘suspicious entities’, but I think they only keep us from the truth if we don’t ponder or attempt to see what’s making the shadow. Shadows foster fear only if we are ignorant of their origin…fear fosters ignorance. Why are most humans inherently afraid of the dark? I do agree with Bloom, that “Plato’s parable continues to inform human consciousness in its struggle with objectivity- in discriminating between appearance and significance.” (pg 110) Light and darkness have many connotations, appearing as metaphors and symbols in cultures around the world. It’s interesting to consider how human association with light and dark have changed, accompanying us throughout history…gives me a lot to think about as I try to fix light into an image.

Reading post #2

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The readings that we had to do was very informative. I was never really into photography and this readings has been teaching me more and more about the different textures and values light can create. I now know the difference between artificial light and direct light, as well as other sorts of light. Also another thing interesting to note was how on different spots or time, the colors of the surface of the thing you want to take pictures of can change colors! It was an interesting read indeed.

 

Reading Response #2

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I haven’t done much film photography before, so I learned a lot from the reading. It made many of the things we went over in class a little more clear. The sections on altering the contrast, exposure, and density of the photographs during development was very interesting. It’s always interesting to see how those things are done in the analog world. The section on photograms was interesting as well, I remember doing those as a kid in my Dad’s darkroom. Liquid photographic emulsion is also intriguing to me, I’d love to experiment with that.

Reading assignment #1

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OK…I hope Im doing this right and finally getting all caught up with everybody and reading your posts! I found this first reading assignment, likewise, helpful though a little overwhelming with all the technical terms to get straight. However, taking some notes and drawing a few little pictures to help me remember how the camera works and some techniques to try out totally helped me in the field…I felt more confident using my camera, and felt my eye was a little better informed.

Reading Assignment

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The reading was overall an informative and helpful to operate our cameras as I am mostly used to using a relatively simple digital camera. Relating it to human eye sight was a smart idea as a connection for the reader and helpful to understand how cameras work. I now know the technical terms for the workings of the cameras and have the skills to operate it effectively with a few techniques to help make my photos interesting.

Reading Assignment

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Wow. There’s nothing I love more than reading 50 pages of technical writing. There’s a very specific reading format I like to  follow each time I have to do something like this:

(1) Start by flipping through the pages to see what’s in store.

(2) Progressively become more and more irritated that this lengthy pre-reading can’t be compressed in to three short sentences.

(3) Attempt to ‘skim’ 50 pages in 10 minutes, magically absorbing everything using that handy speed-reading technique you picked up in 7th grade accelerated reading.

(4) Allow the obsessive tendency to kick in…

and finally, (5) go back and carefully read through each ‘skimmed’ page, hoping to get by without dosing off more than a handful of times.

Forever-and-a-day-later, I can say I’m only a little bitter and picked up some handy camera knowledge that I could have used about 700 photos ago. All sarcasm aside, the reading had some good, comprehensive information to offer. I especially appreciated the short section at the end of the chapter covering aperture settings to apply to Part B of the assignment.