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ND Media Production Y2Semester 2 Unit 55: Photography & Photographic Practices

Tutor: Conor GlynnStudent: Aisling Sweeney

Outcome 1: Understand different applications of photography

Introduction: In this assignment, I will discuss the history of photography and how it has developed/grown over the past few years from film to digital.

In olden times, camera obscuras used to form images on walls in darkened rooms to project an image, this was done through a formation also known as a “pinhole”. In the 16th century, brightness and clarity of a camera obscuras was highly improved, this was simply done by enlarging the pinhole to insert a telescope lens. Throughout the years the camera obscuras became more and more popular used by artists and it also became portable for everyday usage. In 1727, Professor J. Schulze mixed chalk, nitric acid and silver in a flask to notice the side of the flask began to darken on the sides when it came in contact with sunlight. This accidental creation led to the first photosensitive compound. In 1800, Thomas Wedwood made the “sun pictures” by placing opaque items on leather with silver nitrate, this caused images to deteriorate quickly, but they would display clearly under light stronger compared to candle light. In 1816, Nicephore Niepce rapidly improved this, when he combined the camera obscura with photosensitive paper.



In 1826, the first ever a photographer named, Joseph Nicephore Niepce, took photograph. Using a camera obscura to view or draw people for the purpose for making photographs created these photographs. The photograph itself was the view from Niepce’s window at Le Gras. Around the 1830’s, In 1878, dry plates were being manufactured commercially; the dramatic difference to photography was changed in 1889, when Kodak camera’s improved the quality of their photographs by paper to a roll of film. The first ever-

commercial colour film, was the Auto chrome plates that was manufactured by the Lumiere brothers. One of the most life changing moments in the history of photography has to be the creation of developing pictures using 24x36mm frames and 35mm movie film. Nikon launched in Tokyo in 1917 with the first ever Nikon camera known as “The Nikon 1”. The first ever-high quality camera was launched in 1924 that was called the Barnack’s camera that was commercially known as the “Leica” with a 35mm lenses. Strobe photography was

founded by Harold (“Doc”) Edgerton at MIT. Fuji Photo Film was founded in 1938. Fuji began making cameras and lenses in addition to film. Further development of kodachrome, first ever colour multi-layered colour film was developed for 35mm single-

lens reflex (SLR) camera. The first ever SLR with an unreversed image in a pentaprism viewfinder was created in 1949. In 1981, the company Sony created the world’s first digital electronic still camera. It’s known as the “Sony Mavica”. Over the next few years the technology quickly improved. The first ever full-frame digital SLR camera was created by Canon. The Canon EOS 5D was created with a 24x36mm CMOS sensor, this changed the way people took photographs from taking pictures in general and the quality of the pictures. During the period of the digital age in photography was merging, so was fashion photography, as it did not begin in the 20th century. Studio photography was developed in the 19th Century to create more formal portraits. This allowed people to present themselves to the world with posing with different props and backdrops. In 1930, the demand from magazines to publish more fashion-based photography began to increase majorly, Fashion was seen as a form of art and evolved over the years and became more sophisticated, this launched the likes of high-end magazines such as Vogue and Vanity Fair, giving them more viewers and more content to post in their magazines. This allowed fashion designers to promote their pieces in these magazines on a wider spectrum. The fashion photography scene was turned into a brand new direction after World War II. Richard Avedon made the change to modernise these photographs as the times went on, he photographed the likes of Marylin Monroe and Twiggy, and most of his photographs are very iconic in the fashion industry due to the dramatic change



beginning in 1990. The first exhibition of his artwork was displayed in June 2002 in Los Angeles. He’s known for the form of graffiti, that’s scattered all over the UK on various walls. As graffiti is illegal in the UK and is known as “vandalism” Banksy breaks these boundaries and his work is known as a form of art. Photographs of his work have been popular all over social media and have caused a lot of controversy on social media. Each piece of art has a meaning behind it with various different words written such as “Keep Britain Tidy”. His artwork speaks on many different levels from politics to social media and the “need” to get likes. One of his most famous pieces of artwork is a painting of a homeless a man holding up a sign as quoted “Keep your coins, I WANT CHANGE”. This painting/graffiti work meaning is important saying about how it’s unacceptable for anyone to be homeless but their needs to be change in the world to stop this poverty in the world.

Outcome 2: Be able to use photographic equipment and employ photographic techniques

Digital Camera: A digital camera is a camera that produces images and videos that can be stored on to computers and displayed on screens. Digital cameras gives the photographers better quality photographs and will display the photograph more quickly in comparison to film cameras that have to be developed.

Compact System Camera/Point and Shoot Camera: A compact system camera is also known as a “point and shoot” camera, these are cameras that are designed to take still photographs simply. Compact system cameras are use more in photojournalism photography as they take a picture of the certain subject without complication of a Digital SLR. They do not have the reflex mirror that SLR’s will have, but they have the live image captured due to the image sensor.

Digital SLR Camera: A digital single-lens reflex that’s also known, as a Digital SLR or DSLR, is a digital camera that combines the optics and mechanisms of a single-lens reflex camera but with a digital image sensor. With DSLR cameras you can see exactly what you want to shoot through the lens of the camera. However, these cameras are pricier compared to a standard point and shoot camera, as it has more functions such as ISO, shutter speed and aperture. These cameras require lens that can arrange in different price ranges depending on the size of the lenses and the brand make.

LensesWide Angle Lenses: In photography, a wide-angle lens is referred to a lens that has a smaller focal length than a normal standard lens. Wide-angle lenses is around 21-55mm. These lenses are used for landscape photography, as they fit



more of the scenery in than a standard lens as they fill the frame. Also, another use for wide-angle lenses is used in wedding photography for family shots as they can fit everyone in and sports photography for capturing fields and courts.

Long-Angle Lenses: A long-focus lens is a camera lens that has a focal length that is longer than the diagonal measure of the film or sensor that receives the image. These types of lenses are used to make distant objects appear more magnified with increasing magnification. They are mainly used in sports photography, for capturing players from far away.

Telephoto Lenses: A telephoto is a lens with a longer focal length than a standard lens; this gives it a narrow field of view and magnifies the image. These lenses can be used in portraits and for capturing action movement.

Macro Lenses: Macro lenses are suitable for taking photographs of unusually subject that need to be photographed close. This is mainly in used nature photography for capturing small insects and flowers. Macro lenses are used to get small details, as the photography is extremely close-up, this means the size of the subject in the photograph is greater than the life size object. Macrophotography technically refers to the art of making very large photographs.

Prime Lenses: A prime lens of fixed focal length, of one, however with the fixed focal length it means you cannot zoom in and out with prime lens. With these types of lenses the quality is much higher due to the simpler design. Prime lenses are good for portraits to give more depth to the photographs.

Memory CardsCompact Flash Memory Cards: PCMCIA/ PC Card CompactFlash (CF) is a flash memory mass storage device used to mainly in portable electronic devices such as cameras. Compact flash memory cards hold digital photographs and videos. They are then used to import the footage on to a desktop computer for viewing.

Multimedia Cards: A multimedia card (MMC) is a tiny memory card that uses flash memory to make storage portable among various devices such as car navigation systems, mobile phones and digital cameras.

Memory Stick: A memory stick is a type of flash memory developed by Sony, that stores data for digital cameras, camcorders and other kinds of electronically devices.

Smart Media Memory Cards: A Smart Media card (originally called a solid-state floppy disk card or SSFDC) is a memory card that was developed by Toshiba that uses flash memory to store data and to make it portable among devises such as digital cameras.



SD Memory Card: An SD Card (Secure Digital Card) is an ultra small flash memory card designed to provide high-capacity memory in a small size. SD cards are used in many small portable devices such as digital video camcorders, digital cameras and handeld cameras.

Flash Cards: A flash card is a type if card that is used to store digital information, which is commonly used in portable electrical devices.

LightingArtificial Lights: is any light that does not come from sunlight. It is man made lighting, all artificial lighting can be turned on and off with a switch and be adjusted from darkness to brightness.

Flash: Flash (Photography) is a flashbulb or electronic flash is used to provide momentary illumination of a dark or insufficiently lit subject.

Studio Lights: Studio lighting is used to light a certain subject; there are various types of lighting that can be used in a studio from fluorescent lighting to natural and artificial lighting. The lighting in the studio is to create a lot of contrast; this means the areas that are dark are just as important as the areas that are well lit.

Diffusers: In optics, a diffuser is any device that diffuses or spreads out or scatters light in some manner, to give the subject a soften light to make it look less harsh.

Digital ImagingComputer: A computer is an electronic device, which is capable of receiving information (data) in a particular form and to carry out various operations/tasks. Computers can store images and videos as they have built in memory from the external/internal hard-drive that is provided.

Software: Software is a general term for various types of programs that are used to operate computers and other related devices. This is a variable part of a computer and hardware; it can often divided into application software programs.

Scanner: A scanner is a device that scans documents and converts them into digital data that can be viewed on the computer.

Image Storage: Portable image storage is a small portable storage device that is used for storing and viewing digital images that have been taken on a digital camera. The device usually offers a USB and memory card reader for transferring these files on to a desktop for viewing purposes.

Image Retrieval: Content- based image retrieval (CBIR) also known as a query by image content (QBIC), this is an application of computer vision techniques to



the image retrieval problem, It will search for the digital images in large databases.

Printer: is a type of machine that prints texts or images for viewing purposes.

Camera TechniquesAperture: The aperture in a camera is the opening hole that allows space to come through in which light will pass through an optical or photographic instrument. This allows the amount of light to come through in the camera and can be controlled by the camera user.

Shutter speed: In photography the shutter speed is the unit of measurement, which determines how long the shutter will remain open as the picture is being taken. The shutter speed and aperture together both control the amount of light reaching the sensor. Shutter speeds are expressed in seconds or fractions of a second such as ½, 1/4 , 1/8,1/15 etc.

Focus: The focus is the central point of attraction in a photograph.

Lens Length: All lens have an “mm” number printed on them, the short basic definition of a “mm” is focal length that is measured in millimetres. Some lenses have a range of focal lengths such as 18mm to 55mm.

Filters: In photography and videography, a filter is a camera accessory consisting of an optical filter that can be inserted into the optical path.

ISO Film speed: The lower the number, the more light required. The more light that’s required, the more likely a slow shutter speed will have to be used. This means low ISO’s like 100 or 200 are most often used in bright situations.

Exposure Time: A long exposure in which the shutter is opened and closed by hand or by a mechanism of the shutter.

White Balance: The colour balance on a digital camera, this means adjusting colours so that the image looks more natural.

Cropping: Cropping refers to the removal of an outer part of a photograph, this helps to improve the framing of the image, accentuate subject matter or change aspect ratio. It mainly depends on how the cropping is done via “in camera” cropping whilst taking the photograph or done through application such as Photoshop.

Head Height: Head height photography is another term of for a tripod. This is used to stabilize and elevate a camera. Tripods are a type of photographic equipment that has three legs and a mounting head to couple with the camera.



Angle of View: In photography, angle of view (AOV) describes the angular extent of a given scene that is imaged by a camera.

Camera Modes: Most digital cameras support a number of digital camera modes for use in various situations. DSLR camera have modes such as manual modes, consumer point-and-shoot cameras, focus on automatic modes and amateur prosumer cameras.

Composition: In photography, composition is the placement or arrangement of visual elements in the work of art. It means the distinct from the subject of a work.

Colour Temperature: The colour temperature of a light source is the temperature of an ideal blackbody radiator that radiates light of comparable hue to that of the light source; Colour temperature is a characteristic of visible light that has important applications in lighting, photography and videography.

Photoshop Techniques:

CS6 toolbar: The Photoshop tool bar is the heart of the Photoshop cs6 image-editing program. This is where all the different effects and icons are located for users to carry out their editing, In Photoshop CS6 the toolbar may be displayed in one of two ways, A long narrow bar may appear when the tools option is selected from the menu under Window, and the toolbar can be also set to have a more compact appearance.

Burning/Dodging: The dodge tool and burn tool in Photoshop, is to lighten and darken areas of the image. These tools are based on a traditional darkroom technique for regulating exposure on specific areas of prints. Increasing the exposure to darken certain areas of an image is called burning and lighting certain areas of an image is called dodging.

Special effects:

Digital manipulation: (colour, shape, texture, cropping) Photo manipulation is a process performed by a digital artist using an image-editing software (Photoshop) to transform the photograph to their desired photography by using different editing techniques such as colour, shape, texture and cropping. These factors can change an image quickly for example: if the image colour is too red toned it can be easily fixed in the editing phase by colour grading the photograph. Cropping an image to the desired size can illuminate negative space



in an image. Texture can be created naturally or artificially in photographs in the editing process it can create more depth to the image and gives it more realistic ascetic.

Software package facilities: (palettes, cropping tools, lasso’s layering)

Palettes: In image manipulation, there are sets of tools that are controlled by the user such as brush shapes; Palettes are an essential component in editing an image. They can help you customize how the tools in the toolbox preform. For an example, sharpen to make a line thinner and dull to make a line thicker is used by the brushes palettes. Palettes can also help the complex task of layering and manipulating colour schemes.

Cropping tools: The cropping tool is an important tool that is used to make adjustments to the overall size of an image, it can remove dead space/negative space that is not linked in the image, by using the crop tool it effects the entire image and is meant to be used carefully.

Lasso’s Layering: Also known as Polygonal Lasson tool, is another basic selection of tools found on Photoshop editing software. It’s a cross between a rectangular marquee tool and the standard Lasso tool; it can allow easy free hand drawing. Lasso tool allows you to create sections that have irregular borders, there are 3 types of lasso’s tools – regular Lasso’s, the Polygonal lasso as discussed and the Magnetic Lasso. All these three Lasso tools require a starting point to begin your selection.

Digital Printing/ Printer Functions: the Photoshop print setting dialog box is a complex and powerful control centre, on the left is a preview of your image before printing and the right hand side is all the settings that the user is aware of. The digital printing box will display numerous of things such as printer setup, name of printer, how many copies, and number of pages and if you would like a border. These are all given an option before printing an image. It’s important to preview the image before printing as if one button is out of place it can distort the image that you desire to print out.

Paper choice: Paper choice can depend on what type of paper you want your image to be displayed on, there are various types of paper such as glossy, matte and international paper. These types of paper give various effects and can change the look of the final image once it is printed.

Research and describe the process and equipment used in Film photography:Film types:

Printing: (enlargers, frames, contact sheets, printers, dishes tongs)



Film stock: is an analogue medium that is used for the recording motion of pictures and animations. It is a strip of transparent plastic film base coated on one side with a gelatine emulsion. The sizes and other characteristics of the crystals will determine the sensitivity, contrast and resolution of the film.

Film speed: The film is the measure of a photographic film’s sensitivity to light; it can be determined by sensitometry and measured on various numerical scales. A closely related ISO system is used to measure the sensitivity of digital imaging systems.

Processing: (time control, temperature control, push processing, negative storage)

Temperature control: In photography and image processing, colour balance is the global adjustment of the intensities of colours such as red green and blues the primary colours.

Push Processing: In photography, can also mean uprating, refers to a film developing technique that increases the effective sensitivity of the film being processed.

Outcome 3: Plan and produce photographic images for a specified purpose.

PlanningResearch: For my final project, I’ve chosen to do people as my specific topic. In my class, we had different group discussions about various different topics of combining people with fashion or using street art etc. I’ve taken inspiration from three different factors – people, art and 90’s fashion, these three factors will immerge well into my own current portfolio that is based around fashion. I will have the model posing behind a coloured wall with 90’s inspired fashion.

Outcome 4: Be able to reflect upon photographic work

Finished Products: For each of the pictures my composition was centred and the model was posed standing up straight, in all black with hints of the colour red. I took the photographs in the Northwest regional college, Television studio. The



model I used for my photographs was Shane Barr and the theme was 90’s inspired fashion – People.

I’m personally happy with my own photographs and how they turned out in the end up, by using the all black background. I have become more comfortable with using the DSLR cameras and having more knowledge on how to take photographs using aperture, shutter speed and ISO. My time management has become better over the progressing weeks.

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