Playtime

I took a few pictures wednesday playing around. I didn't focus so much on composure here as playing with the different settings and exposure times. Here they are:


















EDIT:A poster outside of Mr. Brown's room (he teaches history and current events classes). Appropriately, it's located under a fire alarm.

"Cause For Alarm?"
This is the poster outside of Mr. Brown's room. I always thought it was appropriate that the poster is under a fire alarm.



















EDIT: A fire alarm in the junior hallway, near the water fountain. Someone thought it might be funny to give us all a little direction.

"Pull Me"
The fire alarm in the junior hallway next to the door. Someone had had the fine idea to write "pull me" on it.



















EDIT: ?!?!


"Football Season"
Tanner Wilson's locker in the sophomore hallway. Maybe he got hungry? Or maybe he's just tough.

My Favorite Photographer

My current favorite photographer is Ryan Russell. Ryan is from Birmingham, Alabama and has been taking pictures since he was young. I've followed Ryan's work for a few years now, and his style never seems to get old for me. He shoots digital because much of his work is used for magazines and online sources, but I've seen some of his 35mm work and it's fantastic also. He works in both color and black&white, but his photographs have a very distinctive style. His color work is typically either highly saturated or uses lighting to create a dramatic effect (I've included samples of each) and sometimes has almost a "lomo" affect (i.e. dark around the edges, high saturation, and slightly distorted). His black and white work is fairly straightforward, and much of it is portrait shots. In his b&w work, he often uses heavy shadows and bold constrast, which almost reminds me of Dragan sometimes. Anyway, he's my favorite! Here are a few samples of his recent work (all courtesy of www.ryanrussell.net):



Here is a sample of his color work- this shot he worked with the saturation of the sky, and also has shadows around the outside of the frame. (It looks like it was shot through the UV-blocker of a windshield?)



This is another color shot- like I mentioned, he loves using lighting to create dramatic colors; he loves flourescent lighting.



And here's a black and white shot- not a portrait, but it definitely illustrates his love of contrast.

CCDs

CCD stands for charged-coupled device. CCDs are microchips found in digital still and video cameras that record information by detecting light. When light passes through the lens and hits the CCD, the light strikes atoms and electrons are released. These atoms are stored in the CCD in rows. CCDs are grids made up of capacitors, and each one is equal to one pixel. A pixel is the smallest element of digital photgraphy. CCDs record monochrome images unless a Bayer Mask is added to it, which has red, blue, and green filters. Also, beam splitters are sometimes used in more expensive cameras, which split the beams into red, green and blue, and each pixel recieves information from each. These type of cameras are bulky and more expensive, but give much better image quality.

So Far

So far this year, we've learned the basic parts of a camera: the body, the aperture, the lense, the shutter, and the paper/film. We've learned that you get an image when light hits the paper/film/microchip and leaves a footprint of sorts. We've learned that pictures have a negative, or invert, and a "positive" which is the real picture. I've learned that the math on how long of an exposure you should use on a pinhole camera IS important and I SHOULD have read it. Next time I'll remember to do that. :D
I don't have any real questions so far, I'm mostly anxious to start taking some more pictures!

Parts of Cameras

Chelsea, Alex and Kait

Demolished Digital Camera



Behind here is the lens, which is like the pinhole of our pinhole camera.



This is where you would press the button to open the shutter. This is basically the cardboard flap we used to cover our pinhole.



Somewhere in this jumble of wires and chips is the storage device/memory card. That's the paper!


Old Minolta



Here's the lens.



Here's the shutter open.



And here's the shutter closed.

Making and Using a Pinhole Camera

The idea behind this post is to explain what a pinhole camera is, how to make one, and how to shoot one. A pinhole camera is basically just a light-tight box with a hole for a shutter that lets light in, exposing a sheet of photographic paper. It's as simple as making cookies-- as long as they're oatmeal. A good design for a pinhole camera uses an oatmeal box (the round quaker oats ones!) as the body.

Let's Get Started!

For this design you will need:
An oatmeal box
Some thin cardboard/ black cardstock
A sheet of tin foil
A pencil or an Exacto knife
A needle (a stud ear ring is an exceptable replacement)
Masking/electrical tape
Black spraypaint (matte, NOT glossy)
Photographic paper (you can look for Kodak)

In order to have a stable camera (AKA you won't need a tripod to get a sharp image) set the oatmeal box upright, but first you need to spray paint it. Spray the inside of the can and lid with flat (matte) black spray paint. Sit it upside down on some newspaper to dry. Later, about 3 inches from the bottom of the box, punch a hole with a pencil or cut out a small square with an Exacto knife. Double up your sheet of aluminum foil and cut out a square about 2x2 inches. Make sure you double it up because you can't have any light leaks. Using your tape, cover the hole on the inside of the box with your foil and secure it. A few layers of tape won't hurt, because again, you need to make sure no light will get in your box.
Now you need to make the shutter. Using a very small needle or an ear ring, gently poke a hole through the tin foil, from the inside of the box, out. (If it's not a clean hole, you can carefully grind off rough edges with some fine grain sandpaper.) Next you need a way to "close" the shutter. For this you can use black cardstock or cardboard you've painted black. Cut a piece a bit larger than the hole in your box (probably 2 1/2 x 2 1/2 inches) and tape the top of it above the hole. Hold it very tightly against the box and tape the bottom to the box also.


(Right) Loading the first piece of paper into the camera.

Now You Have A Camera! Here's How They Work!

Instead of film, this camera uses light-sensitive photo paper and has a small hole instead of a glass/plastic lens. When you open the shutter, or uncover the hole, light comes in to the light-tight body of the camera. The paper is exposed to the light, which creates an image. The image is put on to the paper backwards because of how the light rays enter the hole (see the diagram below). To get an image, your shutter may need to be open for anywhere from 2 minutes to 2 hours, depending on the paper, the conditions, and how far your paper is from the shutter.


(Left) An example of how an image turns out on paper due to the light rays.
(image thanks to http://www.water.hu/ice/webcam/Pinhole-camera.png)

How to Shoot With Your Camera

You need to load your camera before you can do anything else. In a darkroom or a special film transfering box/bag, load your paper. Now you can start the process of setting up your shot. First, find out what your subject will be. Then, determine how long your exposure needs to be (how long your shutter needs to be open). Depending on the brand of the paper, the manufacturer may give you "ballpark" times on how long of an exposure you'll need (i.e. 2-8 minutes, 4-15 minutes), but even that will need to be adjusted. Your time will depend on how far from the shutter your paper is, what brand of paper you're using, and the weather or lighting you're working with. To set up the frame, find a place where your camera can rest while the shutter is open. If you move the camera, your image will be blurry, so finding a safe place to rest it is key. For a short exposure, someone's lap might work, but try setting it on solid ground or constructing yourself a tripod if you want to get really creative! Position your subject (or your camera) and open the shutter. Leave it open for the correct amount of time (or the incorrect!) then close the shutter when you're done. Now go back to your darkroom or bag and remove the paper, making sure that there are no light leaks during the transfer. Also, make sure the paper isn't exposed to light between taking it out of your camera and developing it. Now, develop your pictures and see what you have!

How Our Camera Worked Out

For my group (Kaitlin, Alex, and myself) assembling our camera was fairly straightforward. Our only real trouble was with positioning our shutter in the center of the box, which took more tries than we'd like to admit. We were creative in setting up our shots though! We used moving subjects in 2/3 of our shots, but sadly none of our pictures came out. We had white paper straight through, which means for some reason or another, our paper wasn't getting any light. Better luck next time?

Camera

The inside of the can and lid are spray-painted black!



A pinhole is poked into tin foil, which is taped over a larger hole in the bottom of the can.



A piece of cardboard is used to cover the pinhole and act as a shutter.


By Chelsea, Kait, and Alex

Ths Is The First Day of My Life

In this class my main goals are to learn to use the settings on my camera better and to learn to use Adobe Photoshop. I shoot a Canon Rebel XT right now and its a great camera, but I'm still trying to figure out exactly which settings and buttons I should use, depending on the picture. I'm okay with aperture and focusing but the iso and white balance settings still confuse me sometimes. I can go back and edit pictures pretty well on my editing programs, but I'd like to be able to do that first instead of going back and fixing it. I use Jasc Paintshop, but I recently bought a slightly older version of Photoshop. One thing I'd really like to learn is how to make panoramas without seams.