Scott Lewis Photography

I emailed Mr. Lewis, a professional photographer, last week and have just received his answers to a few questions I posed. Here are the questions and his responses:

What were the most important things you learned when you started
> taking photos?
>
> What do you think are the most important factors in taking a good
> photo?
>
> What do you look for when composing your work that makes your photos
> stand out?
>
> How important do you think photography is as a form of art?
>
> What words of advice can you give me, a beginner, about photography?
>

1. There's two ways to answer this question. One from a technical/
aesthetic point of view and the other from a humanistic point of view.
On the technical end, you have to really understand the nature of the
medium itself. At that time it was film but the same principles apply
with digital. In order to get the results you want out of the image
you have to understand the film, it's developing chemistry and the
lighting conditions and factor them all together in the process of
getting a proper looking negative to make a proper looking print. This
applies no matter what look you are trying for. Same thing for
digital, you must understand the nature of a digital sensor and how ti
responds to light and how to make the image quality and the tones look
rich and be a key component of evoking the feeling or mood you are
seeking to evoke.

The other aspect is the humanistic. You must respect the power of the
image you make and you must value and respect the access you are given
into someone's life and the power you have to tell their story and
reveal some essential truth about them.

2. I'll just quote Cartier-Bresson here cause no one has said it
better."To take photographs means to recognize -- simultaneously and
within a fraction of a second -- both the fact itself and the rigorous
organization of visually perceived forms that give it meaning. It is
putting one's head, one's eye and one's heart on the same axis."

3. That's hard to say as with many photographers your style and the
visual language you use is personal and relates to a distinct way of
seeing the world. I have two threads that have shown up in my work.
One is an ironic, wry sense of humor and juxtaposition and the other
is a rich, deep, layer sense of drama and beauty.

4. As important as any other.

5. Follow your heart, study those who've been where you hope to be.
Absorb everything you can not just about photography but the world
around you, nothing is created in a vacuum.

Finishing Up

I just uploaded all of my pictures, about 35 of them, and I can say that I am very happy with what I got. It was fun messing around with all types of ISO settings, aperture settings, and exposure times while still getting pretty decent photographs. The photos don't really follow a consistent theme besides the fact that they were all shot in manual mode (I set the aperture, exposure, and ISO). Hopefully I'm not just over-hyping my photographs, but I think I've done a pretty good job with the amount of time we've been given. I don't know if I will keep taking photos after this project is over, but I think that photography is something I would like to pursue further, even if its just for kicks.

I will be putting the pictures up somehow. Either on here, or in a powerpoint I show to the class.

It's been a lot of fun,

Will

Online Help

As it is a requirement that we have an online source, I have been trolling the internet for any helpful websites for newbie photographers. Most of them talk about using expensive equipment and programs to help enhance your photos, but I was looking for something that was more "lower level". I stumbled across digitalphotographybasics.com and I like what I found. It has a lot of beginner articles and tips on how to take better pictures with a digital camera. I've mostly been reading the article "The Ultimate Newbie Guide to Digital Photography" but there are a few others that I think will help me out as well. In conclusion, the website was a great find and I think I will be able to learn quite a bit if I mill around the posts for a while.

Help from the Pros

I sent out an email to Mr. Lewis of Scott Lewis photography and asked him a few questions regarding his experiences with photography. I am interested to see what he thinks are the important factors regarding beginning photography. I asked him the following questions and will post the responses as soon as I receive them:

What were the most important things you learned when you started
> taking photos?
>
> What do you think are the most important factors in taking a good
> photo?
>
> What do you look for when composing your work that makes your photos
> stand out?
>
> How important do you think photography is as a form of art?
>
> What words of advice can you give me, a beginner, about photography?

Once again, I am just thankful that he is even taking the time away from his work to help me out with this project. I am looking forward to what he has to say.

In the Hood

Last night, I decided to walk around my neighborhood and see what I could take pictures of that were at least mildly interesting. A few things caught my eye as I was experimenting with different modes. The stop sign by my house was recently painted by ESD kids to say "STOP That". I also live on Meadow road, so they took the Meadow sign, and painted "Elizabeth MEADOW's is sexy". While I found this amusing, I scoured on for other things. I found a cool spider web with the craziest looking spider, some more graffiti or paint, this time on a trash can, and a sweet alleyway that I might start exploring more. Because it was later in the day (around 6:30), I wanted to make my pictures a little underexposed (darker) to give them a cooler look. So for most of my pictures, I have a large aperture (5.6), a fast shutter speed (1/500), and a lower ISO (800). All of these things gave my pictures a darker look without completely underexposing them. I really enjoyed walking around my neighborhood and I am excited to see what else it has in store for me.

Experimental Photography

I think I learn best by doing, so last night I started experimenting with the settings I was told are important (shutter speed, aperture, and ISO). It was definitely a lot of trial by fire. I was learning more explicitly what the settings did and how drastically they can effect your photos. Sometimes I would only make minor changes to try and make a picture brighter, and I would end up having a completely black screen for my image. Definitely one of the most confusing things is how a camera measures aperture size. Instead of making it simple and relatable to other things that involve size, camera makers decided that confusing you with their settings is much more amusing. For example, if you want to make your aperture size LARGER, to let in more light, you have to make the aperture number SMALLER. I'm a pretty simple person who likes simple things and when I figured out the backwards logic involved with this setting, I was pretty angry at myself for not correcting something that was making my pictures look awful and dark. Also, since I am only home when its dark, I have to learn what settings are best for minimal light. So far I've found that a very large aperture (something like 5.6) and a high ISO (1600) with a slow shutter speed will make your photo look like what you're actually looking at instead of a blank black screen.

Hopefully I will better understand these little details so I can actually start taking decent photos. Also, I will start posting some of my experimental photos to show you what rookie photography looks like.

Baby steps in Photography

I figured the best way to chronicle my experience with the interest based project is to blog about it. This way, I can keep you updated about my progress and organize all of the different aspects that might be on here (text, images, links).

My dad just gave me one of his basic Canon cameras and I'm learning about all of the different things you can toggle with in the manual modes. So far, I have learned about shutter speed, aperture, and ISO. My dad says that not knowing about these things will limit the creativeness you can achieve with your shots, and will also hinder your general knowledge of how the camera works. The shutter speed, as described by wikipedia is a common term used to discuss exposure time, the effective length of time a shutter is open; the total exposure is proportional to this exposure time, or duration of light reaching the film or image sensor. The aperture deals with how much light is let into the lens, much like your pupils. The ISO is very similar to the aperture in that it deals with amounts of light, but it is more specifically used for how sensitive you want the camera to be to light. For example, if you are photographing a dark area, you want to let in as much light as possible. To do this, you would widen your aperture and increase the ISO.

For the most part, all of these terms are pretty Greek to me. But hopefully I will be able to grasp their definitions more clearly and use their functions more effectively.

More to come,

Will