Popular Photography - "The World Below"

The first article I read in Popular Photography is titled "The World Below". Written by Jad Davenport, this article is all about the new advances in underwater photography as well as some tips for getting the lighting how you would like it and a few other tidbits of information. Davenport refers underwater as "the most hazardous and difficult shooting environment there is".

In shooting underwater photos there are many things to be aware of. First, shooting underwater, especially salt water which is particularly corrosive, will mess with your electronics in less time than you would imagine. Also there is the amount of pressure as you go down into the water. (Think of how your ears feel when you dive into the deep end of a pool. Now multiply that exponentially to get the amount of pressure in the depths of the sea.) To fix these problems manufactures have produced pressure- proof equipment that span the entire spectrum of camera gear. From ones made of plastic, polycarbonate to top-of-the-line aluminum for DSLRs.

Another obstacle that must be overcome is lighting. As you get deeper into the ocean some colors, such as red, are not visible. So getting color into coral and fish can be quite a challenge. "It's important to have a little light in order to add color and detail in an otherwise monochromatic scene" says photographer and marine conservationist Brian Skerry. He uses a heavy-duty Hartenburger 250 TTL strobes on articulated arms connected via sync cavles to his Nikon D3X and D3S bodies in aluminum Subal housings. Even the most powerful strobes lose about 1 stop of output for every foot they travel through. Sometimes there can even be too much light as well. Sometimes simply dialing your stobes down or moving them away from your subject help get the right balance of light.

The last topic covered in the article is titled "Macro Management". Here Davenport discusses different shots that are usually taken in underwater photography. He says, "Since you can generally get enough visibility for telephoto shots, most underwater photography is either wide-angle or macro".

5 of My Favorite Photos

Genna Boland

My best friend that I have grown up with is about to graduate from  photographer. I decided I would do this weeks blog on her because I love the  passion she has for what she does. Her favorite things to shoot are food. She loves to cook and plate her own food for her photography. The last picture is of my sister that she took a couple of years ago for one of her photo projects. Genna did my sister's Senior pictures this year and has shot a lot of portraits through out the years. She is truly a wonderful and passionate photographer.

http://fallonniedrist.tripod.com/

Sky Photos

For this assignment we were to take pictures of the sky and with them show 3 different rules of dominance. 

                      Jagged lines are more striking than curved ones.

                               Light is more attractive than dark.

                      Difference draws more attention than conformity.

Dominance

The most important paragraph in this book talks about Dominance. It says, "establishing visual priorities for picture elements is based on an intuitive sense that renders these kinds of conclusions... (photos are of Glacier National Park taken by Robert Zavadil and can be found on the following website:
http://www.glacierparkphotos.com/index.html).

                               Red is more attractive than yellow

 

Large draws more attention than small

 

Difference draws more attention than conformity

Jagged lines are more striking than curved ones

Diagonal lines are more attractive than vertical ones

Sharpness is more attractive than blur

Light is more attractive than dark

 

Robert Zavadil

This picture is taken in Glacier National Park. I chose this because it is my favorite place to go. I grew up spending time here and it is pretty much my home away from home. This photo was taken by Robert Zavadil. 

http://www.glacierparkphotos.com/index.html 

Living in the Flathead Valley, landscape photographer Robert Zavadil has the opportunity to visit Glacier National Park frequently during every season.  He has chosen this place and focused his life around it.  Although the park has taken on a special significance for him, as evidenced in his photography, it is no more inherently beautiful or meaningful than any other place on earth.  What makes a place special is the way it buries itself inside the heart, not whether it is flat or rugged or wild or tame.  Every place is elevated by the love and respect shown toward it, and by the way in which its riches are received. What Robert receives from the Park, he attempts to give back to others through his photography.  Whether he has chosen to capture the close-up detail of a small wildflower or the grandeur of a panoramic view from a mountain summit, his resulting photographic prints are stunning.

Keith Carter

Keith Carter is an internationally recognized photographer and educator. Born in Madison, Wisconsin in 1948,he holds the endowed Walles Chair of Art at Lamar University Beaumont, Texas. He is the recipient of two National Endowment for the Arts Regional Survey Grants and the Lange-Taylor Prize from The Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University. In 1997 Keith Carter was the subject of an arts profile on the national network television show, CBS Sunday Morning. In 1998, he received Lamar University's highest teaching honor, the University Professor Award, and he was named the Lamar University Distinguished Lecturer. Eight monographs of his black and white photographs have been published: From Uncertain To Blue, 1988; The Blue Man, 1990; Mojo, 1992; Heaven of Animals, 1995; and Bones, 1996. A mid-career survey, Keith Carter Photographs - Twenty Five Years was published in 1997; Holding Venus and his eighth book, Ezekiel's Horse, were published in 2000. Called "a poet of the ordinary" by the Los Angeles Times, Mr. Carter's haunting, enigmatic photographs have been widely exhibited in Europe, The U.S., and Latin America. They are included in numerous permanent collections, including the Art Institute of Chicago; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the George Eastman House; the Museum of Fine Arts of Houston; and the Wittliff Collection of Southwestern and Mexican Photography at Southwest Texas State University.

I stumbled across Keith's photos while I was hanging out with some of my friends in Bozeman. They are Photography majors and were working on a project that involved his photos. As I was flipping through them they really caught my interest. My favorite pictures came from a group of his photos called "Talbot's Shadows". Below is a description of this gallery from his website that explains the images.


"Talbot's Shadow"

This series was inspired by my admiration for the work of William Henry Fox Talbot, who invented the positive/negative process from which modern photography is descended. Some of Talbot's earliest experiments involved placing objects (such as a leaf or a fragment of lace) on a piece of sensitized paper and exposing it to sunlight. He called these images "shadow pictures". I have attempted to blend this elegant 19th century process with 21st century techniques.

To create the original image I have used a photographic paper that has been continuously manufactured since the 19th century. Objects were placed on the paper and exposed to light, then treated in arcane chemistry, including gold and platinum toners. The resulting 20x24 image is one-of-a-kind.

Chromogenic prints are then made to translate that unique image into a small, carefully matched edition. This series, called Talbot's Shadow, is printed on Fuji Crystal Archive paper.