Photography Blog

Paul Ingersole asked:




A dark room kit provides you with all the items you need to get started developing your own projects. The kit consists of an enlarger, lenses, a cylinder, thermometer, stirring paddle, developing tank, developing trays, film clips, a squeegee, a timer, developing paper, and chemistry film developer. Together, these items will allow you to complete projects in your own dark room.

The enlarger allows you to take your negatives and make them into the size of prints you want. The lenses allow you to magnify the negatives. All of the other items are for ease in processing.

The cost of a dark room print varies from seventy five dollars to thousands of dollars. It really depends on what quality you are wanting. If you are doing this as a hobby, most average priced kits will meet your needs as well as provide you will good quality photos. If you are doing professional jobs, then likely you will want some advanced kit with the top of the line products.

You can find great deals on used dark room kits at some photography shops or online. Ebay has pages of photography equipment for sale. Regardless of the kit you choose, it should provide you with all the basic items you will need to get started.

I was only today looking at some fantastic photos taken by a talanted photographer from Australia.She runs a business called Zoliphotography.biz and the photos of children and familys were wonderful.

Clearly the hobbie of photography continues to grow each year around the world.

Cindy Heller asked:




The 11th century is considered as the beginning of the history of photography as this was the period when an Iraqi scientist invented the camera obscura. In the 17th century, a portable camera obscura was created. The first permanent photograph was captured in 1826. This marked the birth of photography because previously, a way to preserve images produced by cameras has not been discovered.

The first daguerreotype prints were produced on a copper plate and it was common for royal portraits to use this method. In 1840, the first intermediate negatives were produced so people could print a positive image. At last, the first color images were produced in 1861. There was an issue to produce green and blue, but as the technique improved, it was easily solved using three glass negatives, one for each primary color.

Photography became popular to public in 1888 because one man, named George Eastman, marketed his camera that was easily used with only one push of a button. This was the same person who developed roll film and the famous brand Kodak. K was a strong letter according to Eastman and thus he created a word that started and ended with it. Even today, we can see his creation everywhere as the red letter Kodak with its yellow background becomes popular around the world.

Digital photography marked its history in 1973 when a charge-couple device (CCD) was invented. It contained an image of 100 rows and columns, which became the basic of existing digital photography. Kodak developed the megapixel sensor in 1986 and afterwards the technology has developed rapidly into today’s photographic era. In fact, photography has become one of the most popular hobbies in the world.

Even today, photography is still developing continuously. Cameras are getting smaller and we can even hide them in a shirt button. Motion picture also came from photography and right now there are many people who become moviemakers so we can enjoy a life-like look at our daily lives.

Photography as a tool to create history

Our generations are facing great difficulties to uncover many events that have happened in the early history. What we have is only rough drawings on the walls of caves and there are very limited records of any event. Today, we have photography as a tool to create history for our future generations. With photography, we can maintain visual records so our future generations will know what is going on right now.

If you want to find out more comprehensive information on photography, you should visit your local bookstore. You will find out about types of photography, the history of photography, and techniques to produce great photographs. The internet is also an easy and excellent source of information on photography.

Easy2usesites KZN asked:




Marketing Your Business

Product photography is the key to most advertising campaigns, magazine articles and advertisements, and even websites that are designed to market an item. Photographing the item and displaying it in an appealing format is the goal of product photography.

The Equipment

One of the most important aspects of product photography is good quality equipment. At the very least, most product photographers have professional equipment, such as a quality film camera, or a digital SLR, and lighting equipment, lighting tents or domes and backgrounds. Most product photography is now done with DSLR systems simply because photo design software allows for manipulation, such as editing the background out of the final image and can be used to create very unique looking advertisements.

Qualification

For those thinking of doing the job yourself, it can be done, but remember you need to not only develop your skills with the camera but also get information on staging the image, enhancing lighting, and even manipulating the final photograph.

Speciality

Many product photographers specialize in a specific type of photography. There are product photographers that work specifically with fashion items such as clothing, jewellery, shoes and even handbags. Other product photographers may specialize in engines, automotives, computers or other electronic devices. Food items are a very specific field, and are best done with a food stylist.

At the end of the day, the key to being a successful product photographer is to be able to get crystal clear images, and with that, there are endless possibilities.

After the popularity and growth of photography and the invention of the camera, it was no surprise that dissemination and mass production of photo prints followed. Due to the art of photography, public as well as personal history, time and perception has immortalized mankind. The concept of privacy altered as the number of public figures increased and the action of man began being recorded. Photographs became proof of any event, experience or state of being.

The art of photography

During the early stages of photography, many hardships had to be faced before it could be certified as an art form. Artists and critics alike challenged this art form on both its mechanical and chemical front. Photography, for a long time, was only considered a craft.

Removing restrictions

When art schools and museums finally accepted photography as a recognizable art form, the trend continued till present. Many photographers moved away from the traditional and conventional norms that dictated documentary and straight aesthetic modes as an expression of individuality. Photography became the major form of visual art by the 1960′s. Today, photography has been combined with a number of other forms of expression like mixed media and computer imaging.

Practical applications

There are many practical applications when it comes to photography. Photography has evolved to such an extent that it has become an instrument of expression in fields such as medicine, military activities, education and commerce. The greatest benefit of photography has been felt by science. Other fields that depend on photography are geology, aerial mapping, surveying, meteorology, archeology, and anthropology to list a few.

Digital photography

After the 21′st century, images could now be altered and manipulated in a number of ways with the aid of computer techniques and imaging. Photographic nature and technique was forever changed through digital photography. Conventionally photography involved a lens through which light had to be passed and lead to an emulsifying agent. In digital photography color filters and sensors are utilized for creating the image. Digital photography adopts two kinds of techniques. One involves using three layers of filters where each filter will allow only one color to pass through, green, blue or red.

These are just a few facts about modern photography. The art of photography has been around for almost hundred years and the innovations do not stop happening. There are still many more creative innovations yet to be invented, as the advancement of photography can never stop and it will never cease to amaze us.



By: Abhishek Agarwal

About the Author:

Greg Patterson asked:




You might find it helpful to apply a masking on your photo to choose which areas you want to change and leave untouched before you apply any of these special effects. You can create a soft fade between the areas with effects added and those without.

This is called masking and can be done in a variety of ways. One method is called the ‘quick mask mode’. This is quick and easy to do and results are typically acceptable.

Quick masking:

Locate the button called ‘edit in quick mask mode’ in Adobe Photoshop. It is located near the bottom of the main tool bar and appears as a circle in a rectangle. There’s also a short-cut key: Q. Once in quick mask mode, you can select and deselect areas by painting them with white and black respectively, using the standard brush tool.

Zoom to 100 or 200 % for best precision. A soft-edged brush can be used to avoid hard edges. When done, exit the masking mode and go to ‘Select > Feather’ and set the feather radius somewhere in the range of 5-10 pixels. A nice feature is that you can set the opacity to anywhere between 0 and 100%, allowing you to apply the effect stronger or weaker in one part of the image than another.

Layer masking:

Somewhat more complicated, you can add a layer mask. This permits you to apply any effect gradually from any point in your photo. Follow these steps in Photoshop:

1. Select ‘Windows > Layers’.

2. Right click on your layer and choose ‘Duplicate layer’.

3. Click on the little icon in the bottom of the layer box called ‘Add layer mask’.

4. Choose the ‘Gradient tool’ on the main tool box.

5. Select a gradient style from the top ‘Options’ bar (linear, radial etc.).

6. Click on your image on the point you don’t want to change, and drag the mouse away to the point where you want the full effect to take place. The effect will be applied gradually more and more along this line you’ve now created.

7. Last, return to your original background layer and apply any effect you want. This will apply the effect in a soft, gradual way. Use opacity to turn the effect down to less than full strength if you want.

Lens-like effects:

Using the same layer masking explained from above, you can apply ‘Gaussian blur’ which will make the selected areas appear soft-focused, a bit like if you had used a large-aperture lens. With ‘Curves’ you can make your corners darker than the center, replicating the lens effect called vignetting.

In principle, vignetting is considered a lens dysfunction, but subjectively it can add an extra feeling to your photo. It will create a kind of frame that will have a ‘sucking’ effect, drawing more focus to the center of your photo. You can also just lower the contrast and/or color-saturation around your main subject, helping to divide it from the background clutter. Be creative with the many options you have available.

John Wood asked:




An unabridged version of this article and others can be found at:  John’s Blog on ‘One Light’

Portrait photography? No problem! Just find a pretty girl, buy a flashgun, take her picture and hey presto you have a portrait. But is it any good?

So what makes the difference. Well, a number of things do; the model, the background, the pose, the camera, the space, the camera, the lens and the light. But take away light and you have NOTHING!

So what is it about light?

There is: hard and soft, bright and dim, small and big, white and white (yes white and white) as well as white and coloured, direct and reflected, fast and slow, front and side and back and high key and low key and last but not least, invisible!

One Light?: The truth is that there is usually more than one light because where there is light there usually is reflected light.

You can use this reflected light if it helps or insert gobo’s (black go between boards or flags) to stop this. You can increase the reflected light by using reflectors, expensive ones or shirts and white boards.

Hard and Soft: Simply the difference between the light on a sunny day and a cloudy day. Hard light gives dark well-defined shadows. Soft light comes from many different places.

Bright and Dim: A dim light to us can be made to look like daylight, simply by leaving the shutter open for longer. So in this respect there is no such thing as bright or dim light. That is defined by the camera settings. The camera can make the brightest of scenes look like it was taken during an eclipse!

Small and Big: The sun is the biggest light that we can use, however it is called a small light because it is so far away. But put the clouds in between us and the sun and it becomes the biggest light we can use.

Soft boxes turn small lights into big lights and are often 2-3ft across. Alternatives are to shoot through a white sheet or bounce off a wall. An umbrella can achieve a similar effect because it spreads the light all over the place and reflected light can soften the shadows.

White and White: To the human eye, white is clearly white; that is because the eyes is constantly adjusting and interpreting what it sees. Cameras are not able to do that to the same extent. Collect different sheets of white paper and take a close look at them – you will probably find quite a range of whites. The same variations apply to light. We would call them all white (non coloured) but in reality they are coloured or tinted in some small way.

Different lights produce different tints – fluorescent give a greenish light, incandescent give a orange tint, flash guns and strobes will tend not to have a tint; so whites look white to our eyes but some appear coloured to a camera.

White and Coloured: Taking a photograph indoors with flash and incandescent bulbs will give a mixture of white and orange tints.

I was taking an outdoor photo during the day with a deeply overcast day. I place two flashguns with orange gels and the photograph turned from a dull picture to one that looked as though it had been taken late in the evening with a lovely warm glow.

Placing coloured gels over a flashgun colours the light and will produce different effects. Quality street sweets are famous for providing different colour wrappers that can be used for different effects.

Direct and Reflected: Direct light comes from your source light and usually has an obvious effect. Reflected light will come from any other surface that is not totally black. A coloured wall will give the light a colour tint. A shiny surface will give a hard strong light. A textured surface will give a soft weak light.

The distance from the source to the reflecting surface and then to the subject, compared to the distance from the source light to the subject, will greatly affect the strength of the reflected light.

Fast and Slow: What I am really referring to is the duration of the light, ie how long the light is shining while the photograph is being taken.

Daylight shines 100% of the time the shutter is open and a flashgun can shine for 1% of the time. In most cases though, you will get a combination of two lights; one shining 100% and the other a fraction of the time.

Front, Side and Rear: Choose the position of the main light. Each position will create a very different effect, from fully lit to silhouette. Reflected light can be used to fill in shadows.

Low and High Key: This is were the tones of the photograph are primarily dark or bright. The details of the subject are either blown out or in deepest shadow. Often the form comes from the outline of the subject. This is achieved by under or over exposing the subject.

Invisible: Infra Red is not visible to the naked eye, but filters can be attached to a camera which allows that light to be picked up on the sensor or film. This can produce a surreal effect. Different surfaces reflect different amounts of infra-red.

So there we have it, a lightening, fast pass over variations with just one light. 

All this with just one light; just think of the variations with two or more lights.

Explore my website to see some of these effects in practice in the Galleries. Explore making your own photographs with just one light. Explore, discover and understand.