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PHOTOGRAPHY FIRSTS
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DEVELOPMENT of PHOTOGRAPHY:
PHOTO TECHNIQUES: CAMERAS & CAMERA TECHNOLOGY: PHOTO REPRODUCTION: FAMOUS PHOTOGRAPHERS: |
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PHOTOGRAPHY-ISMS |
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"Sometimes I do get to places just when God's ready to have somebody click the shutter." Ansel Adams
"When you photograph people in color you photograph their clothes. But when you photograph people in B&W, you photograph their souls." Ted Grant "Shoot it now, and if you can shoot it better later, do so...but you might not get a later chance." Dr. Stan Blevins "Exposure isn't f/stop and shutter speed. It's light and emotion. It's the way the photographer (has transmitted) the feeling of that light - the emotion of it." Moose Peterson “When Kodak pulls Tri-X off the market, then you know it (film photography) is all over.” Joe Zarba “Eat, dream, sleep and breathe photography and simply never give it up if you want to succeed in this business.” Perry Dilbeck “Photography has always been an art form that uses the latest technology.” Clyde Butcher "I am uniquely aware that it is the subject alone who determines the success or failure of an image (portrait)." Gary Bernstein "In order to do good photography, you have to see good photography." Howard Bond "I put on my camera when I get dressed in the morning." Dorothea Lange "Treat the first frame as a toilet tissue - the first one on an endless roll. Sit down. Think." Jim Austin "NEVER trust an automatic exposure system. Always verify it is setting the correct exposure." Greg Monroe "It is not the camera that takes good pictures, it is the photographer." Michael McNamara of Popular Photography magazine "A great photographer is one who knows when not to shoot." Anonymous "There is nothing as useless as a sharp photograph of a fuzzy concept." Ansel Adams "The negative is the score, and the print is the performance." Ansel Adams "The best scenic turnouts for photography are clearly designated by highway signs reading ‘No Stopping Anytime’." Dr. Stan Blevins "Never brag about a picture until it is in your hands!" (Anonymous) "Digital imaging is to darkroom photography as Jazz is to Classical." Jim Austin "You can never repeat a picture in nature." Ansel Adams "Is the picture you are taking worth the effort? If so, do all you can to make it the best picture you can." (Anonymous) "A fancy mat cannot make a bad photo better, but can destroy a good one." John Grant "The best friend a photographer has is his wastebasket." Lenord Rue "The world is full of pictures that are okay - you want to do something a little bit better!" Weldon Lee “The camera is just a box to hold your film and without any skill and enthusiasm it can never be anything more.” Lachian Main “There’s too much being made of photographers being legendary guys with big brains. In truth, we’re all just reaching for the stars and stumbling over wheelbarrows!” Dick Steinheimer “There’s only one light source up there. Why do you think you need so many down here?” Jay Maisel "Are you a picture taker or picture maker?" Unknown "(Photographic) art should be like a virus...the first thing it has to do is get into your stomach somehow and just stick in there." Roger Ballen |
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PHOTO TID-BITS |
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The name “Kodak” was made up in 1888 by George Eastman strictly to be a short, easy to read and recognize brand name that was hard to mis-spell. K was his favorite letter, and the name stands for nothing to satisfy trademark law.
The famous “Stanley Steamer” automobile was manufactured in the same factory in which the Stanley brothers had first manufactured dry plates for George Eastman. The 1941 35mm Kodak Ektra was "left handed" - advance lever, shutter button, and also the focus knob were on the left side of the camera. The “Naked City”, a popular movie about New York, got its name from the book of photographs of the same name taken by the famous New York newspaper photographer of the 1930s and 1940s, “Weegee” (Arthur Fellig). Weegee’s vivid black & white photos of dead mobsters, movie celebrities, and other stark scenes of big city life, taken with a Speed Graphic and flash gun, are icons of American photography. Did you know that the Polaroid instant print cameras and film take their name from the polarizing filter? After Dr. Edwin Land developed the first polarizer for cameras in 1935, he started the Polaroid-Land Company, hence the name for the instant camera he invented in 1947. “Tranny” is the term used in England for “transparency” film. Probably everyone knows that Samuel Morse invented the Morse Code. And probably most know about Mathew Brady, the famous Civil War era photographer. But did you know that Brady learned some of his photographic techniques from Morse? Sam Morse’s main passion in life was the then new science of photography, and he ran a photography school in New York, which a young Mr. Brady attended. Ansel Adams is best known for his precision “Zone” exposure and development system to produce near perfect negatives and prints, along with his meticulous insistence on perfection. Yet he achieved what is probably his most famous photograph in a very hap-hazard manner! “Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico” was taken without time to meter the scene and, because he was unsure of the exposure, Ansel then had to guess at the proper development time. The result was a negative that was very underexposed in the foreground and very overexposed in the sky, and required extensive dodging and burning to achieve a good print. Manipulations of photographs are nothing new: Concerned over digital manipulation to create a photo that is not true reality? Well, this is nothing new. Photographers have long been manipulating prints. Pioneer photographer William H. Jackson and others of his time frequently scratched in objects in their photos, such as smoke for a steam locomotive, or even an entire train in advertising photos for the railroads when there was not one in the original image. Another trick was to paste on a cardboard cutout of a silhouetted coyotte howling against the moon, and make a copy negative. And when enlargers first became available, “traditional” photograpers howled at the possibility of “manipulation” from cropping a negative. Have you ever noticed old family photos where the wife or husband was noticeable younger than the other? In that era (turn of the 20th century) photography was not as common as today, and many times a couple would never get their portrait taken while both spouces were alive. If the wife wanted a portrait with her husband after he had died, an earlier portrait of him might be pasted on a new image of the wife and copied, producing a “family portrait” of the two together. What would Ansel have thought of digital? Actually, he probably would have embraced it enthusiastically! Although Ansel Adams was very much a “photography purist,” we must remember that he died in 1984 before the common use of computer programs to correct and manipulate photos. However, Ansel liked new technology. He experimented heavily with the new Polaroid instant film in the late 1940s; and used a microwave oven to quickly dry test prints. Since Ansel’s main concerns were for the finished print and the great amount of time he had to spend in the darkroom laboriously dodging and burning-in each print he made, he would probably have welcomed any new “tool” that could make his life easier, such as the use of digital technology to correct flaws and adjust contrast ranges in his photographs. The photo klutz: Recently, I bought a small point-and-shoot camera for our 11 year old granddaughter, and carefully instructed her how to use it. On a vacation trip, she took numerous pictures, and when I had the film developed, I was amazed at how good the prints looked - she obviously was holding the camera steady, composing correctly, and shooting only interesting subjects. There were only a couple of shots that were flawed, and it was obvious she had let a finger cover part of the lens. When I mentioned that many professional photographers do not have such a high percentage of good shots on a roll, and that the two with the finger over the lens was not bad, she huffingly pointed out that SHE was the subject of those two photos and therefore could not have taken them - that in fact it was I who took those shots and that was MY finger over the lens! Greg Monroe |
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