THE ART OF PHOTOGRAPHY | Learn Photography

THE ART OF PHOTOGRAPHY / PHOTOGRAPHIC TRICKS

Photography can roughly be divided into two categories namely, technicolour and monchrome, more commonly known as Colour and Black & White. Monochrome pictures are beautiful and is essentially a play on 256 shades of grey.

BLACK & WHITE

The key to a good monochrome  photograph is to ensure that the white areas are white and the black areas are black, which would then result in good contrast between the rest of the greys in between. You may ask why B & W photos, when we are living in a colour World? Well, the short answer is that B & W film preceeded colour film by several years. B&W film also has a faster ASA than colour film and is easy to manipulate for sepia tones and spot colouration as can be seen in these pics below. Mono is also easy to develop and less expensive, if done by yourself  in your bathroom (darkroom) at home. The longer answer will be explained over time.

B&W Photography requires whites to be white 
and black areas to be black.

SEPIA TONE

Sepia tone give the appearance of an old or antique photograph or even looks like it was taken with expired film but it's a desired effect often used in wedding photography for effect. As can be seen this photo is not very old since Altus from 7de laan is standing centre back row. For more about this popular soap opera, click here.

Sepia tone created from a colour photo. First is used 
desaturated then converted to sepia tone

COLOURATION

Colouration was the in-thing before colour film and many an ardent photographer used food colouring and a fine brush to add colour into their photographs, however with the advent of pixel editing computer software, the goal posts has some what changed. It changed so much that B&W processing is as expensive as colour processing if not more so. But the coolest part of Computer software like Photoshop, Paintshop Pro & Gimp is that desaturating of any colour photographs is so simple.

A lone red rose among white roses created with spot colouration.  

Photography has now moved from an art-form to a higly skilled business and a lucrative business at that, if you know what you doing.

Two colourised photographs that was manipulated with
picture editing computer software.

Learning the Art of Photography starts with an ordinary, preferably 35mm camera. Get yourself one from a pawn shop or second user photographic store. At the moment it isn't neccessary to get a flash just yet, but it would be an asset to have. Digital cameras will be discussed later, when you really know what you doing.

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PHOTOGENIC | Learn Photography

LEARN THE ART OF PHOTOGRAPHY

A photographer is only as good as his equipment, or so they say! But that's not entirely true. I have seen the most amazing shots taken with "two and a quarter cameras", plate cameras and even disposable cameras. So the quality of the camera is no reflection on the photographer. But owning the right camera for yourself is what photography is all about, regardless of its make and quality. Knowing your camera along with all its features and capabilities and incapabilities, is what makes you a good photographer. Remember its the lens that makes the difference.

In essence a camera is only a light proof container housing the film, so any light proof container could suffice but the lens is what captures the light along with your experience that defines the quality of the image. As the photographer you have a light proof container with a lens and you determine how "much light enters the lens" and the "duration you want the light to enter" in order to capture the perfect image. One could say that the perfect image is in perfect balance. Like Chakra for humans, Chi for houses, ballance of mind and body. You are the balance operator, because you control the "quanity of light entering the lens" which we can place on one side of the scale and the "duration of time" light is allowed to enter is placed on the other side of the scale. If you get the balance perfect you are almost guaranteed of a perfect photograph.  In photographic terms these aforementioned controls are F stops and shutter speeds respectively, both of which are adjustable camera controls on your camera. In most SLR cameras the F stop is a leaf aperture mechanism  inside of the lens and the shutter speed control is an electronic setting on the camera body. Different camera manufactures employ different F-stop and shutter systems, the type I favour is the leaf type used by Leica. Leica cameras, or some at least have both a shutter inside its lens, so what ever you do, don't drop it, because they are sensitive and expensive. The difference between an expensive camera and a cheaper camera is normally the quality of the lens. Good lenses makes for good photos hence most cell phone camera photographs suck even though they sport a Zeis lens. Zeis lenses are certainly one of the better lenses on the market. So, if you have any lightproof container fitted with a Zeis lens and you can control the incomming light, based on your experience, should you be able to do this well,  then you are heading for Photoguru status.

Photo, Photograph, Photographic, ISO/ASA, leaf shutter, focal plane shutter, lenses, apertures, camera, cameras, SLR camera, view finder, 3D photographs, Box Cameras,  Digital cameras, depth of field, Auto Focus, shutter speed, split screen focus, cable release, self timer, hot shoe, film. strobes, flash, umbrella flash, flash bulbs, Close-up filters, UV filters, Prism filters, close-up bellows, flash fill, colour depth, sepia tone, monochrome, Panaramic photographs, fisheye lenses, telephoto lenses, wide angle lens, camera body, Macro lens, super flash, tripod, Sigma lense, Nikon lenses, Nikon cameras, Minolta, Nikon Coolpix, Canon, Nikkor, Zoom lenses, Nikon mount, Fuji, Canon, AF-S VR, Nikon battery holder, Carl Zeiss,