PHOTO MIDTERM

OTHER ELEMENTS AFFECTING DEPTH OF FIELD IN A PICTURE

*FOCAL LENGTH OF LENS* — wide angle lenses have extended field of sharpness than a longer focal length lenses *DISTANCE FROM THE LENS TO THE SUBJECT* — the nearer the subject is, the shallower the zone of sharpness

ISO SPEEDS

*ISO 100, 200* - slow in speed - insensitive to light —> needs much light to work - little noise —> produces "best" photo quality - good for outside *ISO 400* - moderate in speed - could be either outside or inside *ISO 800+* - fast in speed - sensitive to light —> needs little light to work - noisy + degrades image quality - helpful in low light situations without a tripod

LIGHTING

*TYPES OF LIGHTING* - front lighting - side lighting - back lighting *AMOUNT OF DIFFUSEMENT ["QUALITY OF LIGHT"]* - direct lighting - diffused lighting - directional diffused

DESCRIPTIVE PHOTOGRAPHS

- all photographs describe, but some are made only to describe - I.D. photographs, medical x-rays, security surveillance photographs, + NASA space exploration photographs are clear examples of photographs that are made to offer descriptive information + function descriptively

ISO ["SENSITIVITY TO LIGHT"]

- films are rated for the relative sensitivity to light —> this designation is known as the ISO # or film speed - the International Standards Organization is responsible for this standardized rating ** films that have low #s are "slower" films but have finer grain [used in bright situations] ** films that have high #s are "faster" films but have more grain [used in dark situations] - digital photography has the same systems for the purposes of determining exposure ** there is also an equivalent visual experience to "grain" in digital photography

APERTURES

- formed by overlapping leaves of metal inside your lens that can open + close to control the volume of light entering the camera - each aperture = f-stop - each opening lets in either 1/2 as much or twice as much light as the one before it or after it

IN CAMERA LIGHT METERS

- helps you determine which combination of shutter speed + aperture are appropriate for the lighting situation - a *light meter* is an instrument inside your camera that tells you if the amount of light coming into the lens will be enough, too little, or too much - to properly expose your image, the light meter takes into account your shutter speed, aperture, + ISO

CAMERA OBSCURA [PINHOLE CAMERA]

- in its simplest form, a camera is a light-tight box that lets light in an opening on one side so that it may strike film, paper, or digital media on the other side - observed in 470 BC - most primitive form of camera

ETHICALLY EVALUATIVE PHOTOGRAPHS

- make moral judgments, take political stances, promote social causes, + are often passionate pleas to right wrongs - advertising images also belong in this category as visual promotions of what some would have us accept as the good life

INTEPRETIVE PHOTOGRAPHS

- photographers who make interpretive photographs also offer information about the world, explaining phenomena, but from a personal, idiosyncratic, + non-scientific point of view - fictive, poetic, + metaphoric, usually using actors, models, or situations directed by the photographer - although they make explanatory claims about the world, their claims would be hard to prove with empirical evidence, + acceptance of their truth is based on a viewer's willingness to believe them

SHUTTER SPEEDS

- shutter speeds on film cameras used to be found on dials that sat on top of the camera ** this dial listed the standard series of shutter speeds - like apertures, each shutter speed lets in either 1/2 or twice as much light as the one before it or after it

THEORETICAL PHOTOGRAPHS

- they are about art, functioning as visual art criticism, art about art, or photographs about photography - much of the photography under the label of conceptual art, in the 1970's, appropriately fits this category, and especially the post-Modernist photography of this decade

EXPLANATORY PHOTOGRAPHS

- very dependent on the descriptive information they contain but are made to go beyond description in an attempt to provide answers to questions of a scientific nature - some are artists, and some are social scientists, though they all investigate society with the camera to explain it from anthropological or sociological perspectives - many press photographers also attempt to explain, seeking answers by means of photographs to the questions of who, what, + where?

HENRI CARTIER-BRESSON, 1908-2004

Behind the Gar St. Lazare 1932 Gelatin Silver Print

DSLR CAMERA

DSLR = digital single lens reflex camera - inside the camera is a mirror that reflects the light coming from the lens up to an optical viewfinder, by way of prism or additional mirror [this is how you can see what you're shooting] - when the shutter is pressed, the mirror flips out of the way, shutter slides open + light coming from the lens takes a straight shot to image sensoring where photography is made

DSLR

Digital Single Lens Reflex; a camera with one lens that involves a mirror + prism that the view looks through

ISO

International Standards Organization; the number represents the film's sensitivity to light. a higher ISO # indicates the film is more sensitive + requires less light for a proper exposure.

OPACITY

[1] state or quality of being opaque [2] the degree to which a substance is or may be opaque

SILHOUTTE

a dark image outlined against a lighter background

CAMERA OBSCURA

a device used by early artists (centuries before Christ) to display a scene on the wall of an otherwise-darkened room so that it could be more-easily copied. in a manner similar to the pinhole camera, a small hole placed in an opposite wall permitted light to enter the room (the "camera"), + the scene outside became transmitted inside, + was shown inverted on the rear wall or sometimes on a screen. the camera obscura is the origin of the modern camera.

WHITE BALANCE

a digital camera analyzes a scene using its white balance mode to determine areas that should be recorded as pure white. the camera adjusts the overall scene's color balance so that the areas meant to be reproduced as white in the picture will be white, thereby also adjusting all the other colors in the scene using the same color shift values, so that all color is accurately represented.

SUNNY 16 RULE

a guideline that states that you can expose a normal scene, lit by bright sunlight, at an aperture of f16 + a shutter speed equivalent to the film speed [ISO or ASA] being used

DRY MOUNTING

a means of attaching a print to a backing using a thin paper stock coated on each side with a dry cement that melts under heat

DEPTH OF FIELD

a measure of how much of an image, apart from the main subject, remains in focus. in other words, how much of the background + the foreground of the subject is sharp. the range of distance in a scene that appears to be in focus + will be reproduced as being acceptably sharp in an image. depth of field is controlled by the lens aperture, + extends for a distance in front of and behind the point on which the lens is focused.

DPI [DOTS PER INCH]

a measure of print resolution, that is, the number of dots of ink per linear inch of an image. the greater the number of dots, the higher the image's resolution.

LIGHT METER

a reflective exposure meter that is a built-in component of a camera

PIXEL

abbreviation for "picture element", a pixel is a small square of colored light that forms a digital image. it is the smallest unit in a digital image. think of a pixel as a single small tile in a large mosaic.

DBURING

also known as burning-in and "printing in". in a darkroom, providing extra exposure to an area of the print to make it darker.

JPEG

an acronym for Joint Photographic Experts Group that describes an image file format standard in which the size of the file is reduced by compressing it. JPEF, with it 16.7 million colors, is well suited to compressing photographic images. a "JPEG" image file name carries the extension "jpg".

UNDEREXPOSURE

an image in underexposed when the film or image sensor receives too little light for proper exposure

PHOTOMONTAGE

another name for a composite photograph, which is made by combining pictures from different sources into a single image

DODGING

blocking a portion of light when printing a photograph or manipulating a digital image so that an area of the image will be made lighter

DIRECTIONAL DIFFUSED LIGHT

combines quality of direct + diffused light [indoors/windows + doorways/outdoors = bright light shines on a reflective surface such as concrete + then bounces onto a subject shaded from direct rays] - is partially direct with some diffused or scattered rays - it appears to come from a definite direction + creates distinct shadows, but with edges that are softer than those of direct light - the shadow edges change smoothly from light to dark, + the shadows should have visible detail

NEGATIVE SPACE

empty or subordinate space surrounding an object of perception, conceived in terms of its aesthetic effect

AMBIENT LIGHT

existing light surrounding a subject; the light that is illuminating a scene without any additional light supplied by the photographer. this is also called "available light" and "existing light".

PENTIPRISM

five-sided prism in SLR camera that renders a correctly-oriented view of the focusing screen

FRONT LIGHTING

from behind the camera toward the subject - the front of the subject is evenly lit with minimal shadows visible. - surface details are seen clearly, but volume + textures are less pronounced than they would in side lighting where shadows are more prominent

PHOTOGRAPHY

from the Greek the mean "painting or writing with light"

DIRECT LIGHTING

has hard-edged shadows [the sun on a clear day] - it's rays are nearly parallel, striking the subject from one direction - the smaller the light [relative to the size of the subject] or the farther away, the sharper + darker the shadows will be - the sharpest shadows are created by a point source, a light small enough or far away enough that its actual size is irrelevant - can produce prominent shadows, so it is important to notice how such light is striking a subject

FAST FILM

high speed film, i.e. film that is more sensitive to light, meaning less light is needed to obtain a properly-exposed image

SHUTTER SPEED

how fast the camera's shutters open. determines how long the film is exposed for.

JUXTAPOSE

in composition, to place two objects close together or side by side for comparison or contrast. often helpful in showing scale in an image.

RESOLUTION

in digital imaging, it most often refers to the number of pixels per inch in an image file. it can also refer to print resolution, digital camera CCD resolution, etc.

DIFFUSER

material that diffuses light. a diffuser may be a translucent material or a rough-surfaced reflective material, both of which scatter light's rays, thereby softening the light.

MULTIPLE EXPOSURE

more than one exposure on the same frame. called a "double-exposure" when there are two exposures on a single frame.

OVEREXPOSURE

occurs when a photograph receives too much light

PAINTING WITH LIGHT

occurs when the photographer incrementally lights an otherwise darkened scene using a handheld flashlight or other small light source while the shutter remains open during a time exposure. the light is added to the scene in the manner of an artist using a "paintbrush of light".

FOREGROUND

part of the scene nearest to the camera

PPI

pixels per [linear] inch, a measure of an image's resolution

BLOWN-OUT

refers to an image's highlight area when the exposure causes the highlights to be pure white with no detail

BRACKETING

refers to taking a series of pictures, at least three, of the same subject with varying exposures [1] the main exposure, which is presumed to be correct, but may not be [2] an overexposure, generally of one or more stop's difference from the main exposure [3] an underexposure of one or two stop's difference from the main exposure

BOKEH

refers to the blur, or more specifically, the quality of the blur in out-of-focus areas of a photograph. there is no firm definition for what is good or bad bokeh, since its degree of quality is in the eyes of the beholder. however, it seems to be generally accepted that softer, smoother edges for blurred areas are preferred.

DIFFUSED LIGHTING

scatters onto the subject from many directions + provides an even, soft illumination - shows little or no directionality ** shadows, if they are present at all, are relatively light ** shadow edges are indistinct + subjects seem surrounded by illumination - it can be beautiful light for portraits, gently modeling the planes of the face - overcast skies as well as open shade areas provide good sources for diffused light outdoors - indoors, diffused light occurs when light comes from several different directions [multiple windows or light fixtures]

RAW

sometimes called camera raw, raw format, raw image format + raw. a digital image storage format that contains the most information possible from a camera's sensor. RAW data [a RAW image file] is unprocessed.

AESTHICALLY EVALUATIVE PHOTOGRAPHS

sometimes these photographs present landscapes, nudes, and still lifes as inherently beautiful or worthy of aesthetic attention though more often than not it is as they are photographed

PANNING

technique that involves taking a picture while moving the camera at a relatively slow shutter speed. it is almost always used when tracking a moving object, such as a race car, as it travels across the film plane. when properly carried out, the object is rendered relatively sharply while its surroundings are blurred.

RULE OF THIRDS

the rule of thirds is a design principle based on a photographer/artist visualizing both the vertical + horizontal division of a composition into thirds, and then placing the subject where the lines intersect

APERTURE

the size of the opening in the lens that determines the amount of light that falls on the DSLR's sensor. the aperture is measured in "f-stops" or "f-#s". the value of the f-stop has an important effect on the depth of field of an image. a larger f-top [smaller aperture] will produce a greater depth of field.

BACK LIGHTING

toward the camera from behind the subject; light directed at the subject from behind the subject - shadows are cast toward the camera + so are prominent, with the front of the subject in shadow - back lighting can make translucent objects seem to glow + can create rim lighting, a bright outline around the subject - be careful not to have light source shining into the camera lens, this creates sharpness-reducing flare

SIDE LIGHTING

toward the side of the subject + camera; light falling on a subject from the side relative to the camera position - shadows are prominent, can at the side of the subject, which tends to emphasize texture + volume - early morning + late afternoon are favorite times for photographers to work outdoors, because the low position of the sun produces side lighting and back lighting

JOSEPH NICEPHORE NIEPCE

view from his window @ Gras in 1826