Number ten

LECTURE FOUR! 

PICTURES

Picture stories are everywhere!

From way back in history pictures have been telling stories- indigenous cave stories, holy books and stained glass windows, illuminated letters, newspapers illustrated with line drawings.....

The first published photograph in a newspaper was in 1879 in The Daily Graphic, with the first colour photo published in 1936.

But since then, what developments have we seen in photo journalism???

- digital capture and upload

-photoshop

-digital manipulation

I went back onto YouTube to find the Dove Beauty Evolution ad to repost up here, and while I was searching found so many 'before and after photoshop' videos! The technology that photographers have today and the ability it gives them to manipulate photos to achieve a more desired look is INCREDIBLE! Here is one video example: 

My Goodness. No wonder my generation have body image issues! I have no inclination to turn this into a 'media is giving teens body image issues' rant, but I can't help but wonder what kind of a world we would live in, if photoshop and retouching had never been created. Back to developments in photo journalism...

- digital publishing

-photo galleries attached to stories online

What makes a great photo?

FRAMING

FOCUS- where the eye goes

ANGLE AND POINT OF VIEW (POV)

TIMING- shutter speed

CAPTURING "THE MOMENT"

THE RULE OF THIRDS

I went on my own little research mission to find a picture that really connected with me, using the rule of thirds. And there a countless incredible image online to be found, but what I stumbled across, was a blog post, suggesting a ratio with a different and inexplicable, naturally occurring preference towards it: The Golden Mean. 

The Golden Mean is the ratio and series of numbers that Fibonacci figured out, and I'm not very interested in maths or numbers, but somehow all the numbers laid out make a spiral. When a photo is composed with major parts falling along the lines or intersections of the spiral it makes our eyes and brains happy.

 And I definitely don't fully understand it so that is definitely a tutorial question for next week....read the post here!

But here are some of the spiral pictures!

What makes a great moving picture?

FRAMING

TIMING (& EDITING)

INCLUSION OF SOUND

CAPTURING 'THE MOMENT'

FOCUS

ANGLE

EXPOSURE

Video Journalism- THE NEW TV JOURNO

-a one person operation and way of the future

I really enjoyed Lecture 4. It gave me a lot of insight and knowledge into the depth of emotion that can be exposed in a subject and therefore drawn out of the audience, through capturing the perfect picture utilizing all elements of photography well. I now understand the importance of photos supporting stories and even telling stories themselves, they add a feeling of realness and reality that could not be achieved purely through words.

Here are some portraits that I find tell stories by themselves