Return of the Lens Pointer!

Heya peeps! It has been some time since my last post,...don't check the dates, trust me, it's been a minute!
 I am back and better than ever! I have been through quite a lot in the past year,...including losing my wife to lupus, then my mind, which meant that I had to send my kids to stay with my brother and his wife, who I owe BIG time, and then everything else seemed to promptly follow, including my business, and all my gear!
 Oh well, I have learned so much about myself in the past year, and built a huge amount of spiritual strength.
 Well I welcome myself back to my blog, and to all of you people who read my blog,...all two of you,...and hope to really do some good stuff in 2015!!!

 COMING SOON: Duality ~ Art-n-Science

More about modes...

To really understand what "modes" mean on your digital camera's mode dial (the one on top with the M-Av-Pv-night, sports (little running guy), etc.) you have to understand that the camera can really only change a very limited set of things. There is what we refer to as the triangle of exposure, exposure (how bright or dark an image is) is determined by the balance of three things.
1. Shutter speed: the amount of time the film or digital sensor is exposed to the light ,the numbers are represented in fractions of a second until you reach a shutter speed of 1 second or more. ie; 60= 1/60th of 1second, 125=1/125th of 1 second etc. Fast shutter speeds freeze action, slow ones allow blur.

2.Aperture: The size of the opening of the diaphragm inside the lens. The numbers used here also represent a fraction so the larger the number the smaller the opening, due to the fact that 1/22nd of "as wide open as possible" is a smaller opening than 1/8th. These numbers are usually prefaced by a little curvy "f" (f-22, f-8 etc.) this comes from the French word "finestra" which means "window", rather fitting I think.
  The neato thing (that's right, bringin' back the word "neato"! Deal with it!) about the aperture is that it not only affects how much light is allowed in to the film or digital sensor, it also controls what is referred to as depth of field (DOF), which is a measure of how much will be in "acceptable" focus from the camera position to the horizon, or sky or farthest visible object. A large aperture (small number ie; f-1.8) will give less DOF, which means you will have a narrower slice of space from front to back be in focus. I like to think of it as a noodle making machine, like the Play-Dough kind we had as kids, with a smaller opening the noodles are more focused, longer (shutter speed) and tighter, while larger apertures are more sloppy, shorter and fatter.

3. ISO (What many film guys know as ASA): Means "International Standardization Organization" Who's motto is "Same, more same!" They often stand about outside places that offer things that are not standard, and chant "What do we want? MORE SAME!, When do you want it? ON A STANDARDIZED SCHEDULE!" (not RLY) but yeah,...ISO controls how sensitive the film or digital sensor is to light. The higher number the more sensitive. This control factor has less play in how the image actually looks aside from one caveat, noise. Noise is the stuff in some images that looks like static, or little dots. Many sports, photojournalism and fine art photographers are much less concerned with noise. The more sensitive (ISO 800, 1600 and up) the more noise will become apparent.

Either the camera can control these three things to give you a "proper" exposure (proper according to the camera, not your wants), or you can, its always better if you control at least two of these factors. The thing is a lot of compact cameras do not allow to control any of these directly save for ISO, so you have to learn how to trick your camera into creating the image that YOU want, not the image that the camera thinks you should have.
Think in terms of a bucket at a water spigot, ISO=the size of the bucket, Aperture is how much you open the spigot and how MUCH water flows out, Shutter Speed is how long it takes to fill the bucket to the top.

Take this understanding and re-read your manual, the part about what each mode is and what it does for the final image, ie; sports mode=fast shutter speed therefore it stands to reason that one will require a wide aperture, BUT in many cameras the programmers understood that things move quickly in sports so you do need to maintain a little bit more DOF, to keep your subject in focus as they move about, so it will most likely increase the ISO sensitivity to allow for such a fast shutter speed, at a medium-wide aperture,...
 Have fun tricking your camera into doing what you want. Oh yeah BTW might not be a bad idea to take some test shots to really get a grasp of these concepts, you'll find out really fun stuff like when you're zoomed way in the DOF is WAY less than it is when you are shooting something at a very wide angle, take notes on what you are doing, and the use the notes later when looking through the images on your monitor, it helps, trust!
 I promise I'll be back sooner next time with some "How I shot it" stuff where-in I will share an image and explain how I shot it!

Photography basics, your best friend is,....

Your owner's manual! Read it, and don't just read it, read it with your camera out and DO push the buttons, switch the switches, knob the,...knobs (?) hmmmm that doesn't quite sound right.
Anyhow take out your camera, take out your manual, read and do. Only through reading your manual can you fully understand your camera and what it can and cannot do for you!
I'll bet you find that it can a lot more than you thought it could,...whatever you do, do not set your camera mode to the little green box, even if you just have a compact point and shoot, pocket camera, use the modes. I'll be going into what these modes actually do inside your camera in order for you gain a level of control of your images, only then can you begin to really create images based on what the meaning behind the image is!
If your camera offers aperture priority mode or shutter priority mode use these unless you are shooting in manual mode.
More on modes and what they do in our next post!

Using the Elements to Build Images Part III-Closing Statements

Ok so we've covered some of the ways that we can use some of the elements of design to build an image that better or more concisely communicates our "meaning" for any given image. I think at this point you get it, you get the idea that visual elements can be transferred to verbal meanings. this is the whole point of becoming aware of these elements. I'd like to go ahead now and skip ahead to some photography specific stuff.
 I recomend reading more about the elements of design and composition and you can find more information all over the intarwebz through a simple google search. I have listed a couple of good links here:
http://www.princetonol.com/groups/iad/files/elements2.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_elements_and_principles
Very good one, that actually relates to photography:
http://photoinf.com/General/Robert_Berdan/Composition_and_the_Elements_of_Visual_Design.htm
An now on to some photography talk,...YAY!
Hmmmm,...looks like you may have to highlight then copy/paste these addys into your a new tab or window's address bar,...

Using the Elements to Build Images Part II - Color

Ok in this post we'll be covering, you guessed it texture, color and tone or value. Woot-woot!
  Color is only important any time your image is not an actual black and white (duotones, quadtones, ambrotypes,cyanotypes etc. still count as color) and the colors in an image can do more than just show what color things are in real life. Colors have a direct connection to our psyche and this can be exemplified by some of the terminology that we use on a regular basis. I saw RED, he doesn't know any better he's GREEN, I'm feeling sort of BLUE, etc. This means that we can use colors very effectively to communicate certain feelings. Some of the most straightforward examples of this can be seen in paintings from Pablo Picasso's "Rose Period" and later his "Blue Period". This is really just a call to think about our psychological associations with colors, I'll list a few here.
Red: Hot, emergency, exciting (sports cars), sexy (blush make-up, lip stick) NOTE: this is the first color that the eye will go to unless white is present in the image.
Green: Envy, fresh, sickly, verdant, moist, natural
Blue: Sad, cold, dead, calm, wet, soft
Yellow: Bright, happy, gold, happy again...
Violet: Beauty, very calm, colorful, light and airy
I hope that from these few examples you get the idea that the use of color can have a huge impact on how our images are "taken" or understood by the viewer. Again notice how some of the words used to describe these colors are words that are more commonly used to describe human emotions. If you want please feel free to add to this list with other colors and the way that these colors "feel".

Using the Elements to Build Images Part I - Line & Shape

In our last post we talked about the elements of design and composition, so in this post I would like to expound just a bit on how we use these elements.
 We use the elements of design and composition, the way that a carpenter uses individual pieces of wood, each time we create an image. Our awareness of these elements

A Short Word on Composition and Design; Elements

In photography as in any other visual art form we use the medium to its best effect as a device for communication . Photography is almost always used as a recording device, but just as music is recorded and the recording itself does not in any way affect the meaning behind the song so should our "photographing" not hinder or block out our photographs.
Bored to death yet? Let's continue, mwuhahahaha...

We as photographers, use physical elements from the visual world that are presented to us, or that we create through the use of some visual medium, that reflect,  or otherwise represent these elements of visual design and principles of design and composition: [Each has its own inherent visual cue(s) that work for a very broad number of human beings as archetypical imagery, meaning that they hold much the same meaning from one person to the next].