Thoughts on photography
Feb. 24th, 2003 03:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jazzfishSo I have this cool digital camera that I got for Christmas, and I have a decently padded carrying case. (It doesn't clip on a belt very well; it's got a belt loop, but hooking it on is a pain. I may upgrade later to one like E's, with a velcro clip. I dunno. Irrelevant.) The whole point of getting a digital camera was so that I would take more pictures, on the theory that the hassles of film and the delay in actually seeing my pictures were what was keeping me from photography. Well, plus my lame little camera.
So I'm now carrying my camera around with me when I go places. And I had about two hours to kill today between the Chem lab exam and Shakespeare, so I wandered around the back of campus and took a few pictures. None of them really came out like I wanted them to, but that's not the point; with practice I'll either get better or I won't. The point is that it's (warning: cliche ahead!) an exercise in seeing. In looking for something interesting.
I had a semester-long photography class my senior year of high school, and I got to use my father's old camera. Photo was pretty cool, but I didn't take it as seriously as I could have. (Other stresses, occasional camera problems, blah blah blah.) I think I regretted that even at the time; I know I regretted it later. (Tech appears to not offer a photo class. Grr.) The result of this is that I know something about light and motion and shutter speeds and F-stops, and not so much about composition. This has two effects: point-and-shoot doesn't feel like I've put any effort into it (and thus isn't "worth anything"), and I'm stuck with taking pictures of what I like.
And based on what I noticed and what I actually shot, what I like is perspective. Parallax. Straight lines at odd angles. The way a wall can be in the foreground and still not dominate the picture, but rather focus your attention on what's past it. How different a fence looks if you look straight along it, as opposed to moving two feet to the left and looking down it again. Nature is interesting, too (the movement of muscle in a squirrel's body, for instance), but it's harder for me to find something worth seeing in a natural object. Clean straight lines are far easier to compose with.
So, anyone got a good simple photo editor (all I really want at this point is cropping and resizing) that they can recommend? The Kodak one that came with the camera is crap.
So I'm now carrying my camera around with me when I go places. And I had about two hours to kill today between the Chem lab exam and Shakespeare, so I wandered around the back of campus and took a few pictures. None of them really came out like I wanted them to, but that's not the point; with practice I'll either get better or I won't. The point is that it's (warning: cliche ahead!) an exercise in seeing. In looking for something interesting.
I had a semester-long photography class my senior year of high school, and I got to use my father's old camera. Photo was pretty cool, but I didn't take it as seriously as I could have. (Other stresses, occasional camera problems, blah blah blah.) I think I regretted that even at the time; I know I regretted it later. (Tech appears to not offer a photo class. Grr.) The result of this is that I know something about light and motion and shutter speeds and F-stops, and not so much about composition. This has two effects: point-and-shoot doesn't feel like I've put any effort into it (and thus isn't "worth anything"), and I'm stuck with taking pictures of what I like.
And based on what I noticed and what I actually shot, what I like is perspective. Parallax. Straight lines at odd angles. The way a wall can be in the foreground and still not dominate the picture, but rather focus your attention on what's past it. How different a fence looks if you look straight along it, as opposed to moving two feet to the left and looking down it again. Nature is interesting, too (the movement of muscle in a squirrel's body, for instance), but it's harder for me to find something worth seeing in a natural object. Clean straight lines are far easier to compose with.
So, anyone got a good simple photo editor (all I really want at this point is cropping and resizing) that they can recommend? The Kodak one that came with the camera is crap.
no subject
Date: 2003-02-24 12:40 pm (UTC)I stopped taking pictures merely for posterity years ago; even when I had a Kodak Instmatic 110 camera years ago, I tried to take well-composed pictures, as I had no other control of the process. Now I have a much better camera, and can control most aspects of a shot, but most of my effort still goes into composition.
For my image editing, I just use MS Photo Editor and MS Paint. Allows cropping, resizing, and a modicum of color control, which is enough for me.
no subject
Date: 2003-02-24 01:33 pm (UTC)Which is probably the best way to do it; it's easier to be technically correct than to have good composition. (Witness my ability to have pretty good technique after about a semester.)
On software: I dislike Paint on principle, and appear to not have Photo Editor (unless that's the seemingly useless Imaging).
no subject
Date: 2003-02-24 08:45 pm (UTC)Three of the pictures I'm rather particularly proud of:
http://www.livejournal.com/talkread.bml?journal=photographie&itemid=856037
http://www.livejournal.com/talkread.bml?journal=photographie&itemid=1591473
http://www.livejournal.com/talkread.bml?journal=whitelight&itemid=1584953
(All were taken in color and greyscaled digitally.)
All the rest of my pix that are online: http://skreidle.n3.net/pix.html