Photography

A 21st Century Practice

Mark Chen, Chelsea Shannon

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000182064
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Art
• Subtopic: Photographie

Finally, here is a photography textbook authored in the 21st century for 21st century audiences.

Photography: A 21st Century Practice speaks to the contemporary student who has come of age in the era of digital photography and social media, where every day we collectively take more than a billion photographs. How do aspiring photographers set themselves apart from the smartphone-toting masses? How can an emerging photographic artist push the medium to new ground?

The answers provided here are innovative, inclusive, and boundary shattering, thanks to the authors' framework of the "4Cs": Craft, Composition, Content and Concept. Each is explored in depth, and packaged into a toolbox the photographic student can immediately put into practice. With a firm base in digital imaging, the authors also shed new light on chemical-based photographic processes and address the ways in which new technology is rapidly expanding photographic possibilities.

In addition, Photography: A 21st Century Practice features:

• 12 case studies from professional practice, featuring established photographic artists and showcasing the techniques, concepts, modes of presentation, and other professional concerns that shape their work.

• Over 40 student assignments that transform theory into hands-on experience.

• 800 full-color images and 200 illustrations, including photographs by some of the world's best-known and most exciting emerging photographic artists, and illustrations that make even complex processes and ideas simple to understand.

• More than 50 guided inquiries into the nature of photographic art to jump start critical thinking and group discussions.

1
Devices

David Guttenfelder, North Korean women attend a walk in Pyongyang to call for peace and reunification on the Korean Peninsula, 2015. In the spirit of the twenty-first century, this image was made with an iPhone. See Photo 1.17 for more.

PHOTO 1.17 Hidenobu Suzuki (Japanese, born 1971), Fireflies, 2014.

Photography is highly dependent on equipment. All photographers utilize devices, often in the form of a camera, to make images. What is a camera? According to the Oxford English Dictionary:

• Camera
• Noun
• A device for recording visual images in the form of photographs, film, or video signals.

A camera is essential for producing photographs. A photographer’s camera is a tool, just like a violinist’s violin, a tennis player’s racket, or a Jedi knight’s lightsaber.

None of these people can make great things happen without their tool and, equally important, none of these people could make great things happen when using their tool for the first time.

Since you, reader, aspire to become an expert in photography, it is important to understand that like violinists, tennis players, and Jedi knights, a photographer must commit to study and repetitive practice before they can master the skills needed to operate the tool of the trade – in our case, a camera.

SHOW ME 1.1 How does a camera work?

A camera captures an image by collecting and focusing light. The lens of the camera takes in rays of light that have reflected off the subject being photographed. Camera lenses are capable of refracting, or changing the direction of, these light rays so that the rays coming from a single spot on the subject meet again at a certain distance on the other side of the lens, forming an image of the subject. With some fine adjustments to the lens, the image can be precisely projected on the camera’s image sensor (or film) which then records the image. Voilà! A photograph is made!

Logically, the effectiveness of this learning process is closely tied to the versatility and quality of the tool used. To make the most of time spent practicing, an aspiring photographer should learn with a camera with the following characteristics:

1. The ability for the user to take as much or as little control as they wish
2. Good optical quality, meaning that the camera is capable of producing sharp images with minimal aberration (see Chapter 2: Optics for more on this)
3. The capability to change focal lengths with a zoom lens and/or with interchangeable lenses
4. The ability to deliver RAW image files (in the case of digital cameras; see Chapter 3: Exposure for more on RAW files)

Note: This list is not intended to be a definition of a “good” camera. These are simply qualities that make an effective and versatile learning camera. A variety of cameras will be discussed throughout this chapter in terms of how they stack up to this list.

SLR cameras

SLR stands for single lens reflex; it is a camera body type. The name comes from its structure: one single lens is used both for viewing the image before the shutter release is pressed and for capturing the image when the shutter release is pressed. Refer to Illustration 1.1 to view the simplified structure of an SLR. SLRs were first invented in the 1860s;¹ Photo 1.1 shows SLR cameras from various eras.

ILLUSTRATION 1.1 The simplified structure of an SLR camera.

PHOTO 1.1 From left: Nikon F (introduced 1959); Yashica TL Super (introduced 1966), Canon EOS 650 (introduced 1987).

The name “SLR” distinguishes this body type from other common types like the twin lens reflex camera (TLR), named for its two lenses – one used to view the image in the camera’s viewfinder, and the other used to capture the image (see Illustration 1.2). Photo 1.2 shows an example of a TLR camera. Another camera type similar to the TLR is the rangefinder, named for its focusing device that allows the photographer to measure the distance between the camera and the subject (see Illustration 1.3).

ILLUSTRATION 1.2 Structure of a twin lens reflex (TLR) camera.

PHOTO 1.2 A Mamiya C220 medium format twin lens reflex camera from the 1970s.

ILLUSTRATION 1.3 Structure of a rangefinder camera.

Both TLRs and rangefinders have limitations that are surpassed by the SLR body type. The focusing mechanism of a rangefinder measures the distance between the camera and the subject, rather than detecting the sharpness of the image. This process tends to be imprecise and consequently, rangefinders are incapable of focusing on objects that are too close to the camera. When it comes to switching lenses, a TLR requires a pair of mechanically connected lenses to be switched together (see Photo 1.3); for rangefinders, switching lenses is more complicated, if possible at all. SLRs, on the other hand, only require one single lens to be changed. This convenience gives an edge to the SLR, which eventually became the camera of choice for pros and beginners alike throughout the twentieth century.

PHOTO 1.3 135 mm f/4.5 Mamiya lenses for a twin lens reflex camera. The two lenses have a matching field of view: the lower lens (here, on the left) projects the image onto the film and the upper lens (on the right) enables the user to see the image through the viewfinder.

THINK ABOUT IT 1.1 Camera body structures

Compare Illustrations 1.1, 1.2, and 1.3. How do SLR, TLR, and rangefinder camera structures differ? How might these structural differences affect how these cameras are operated and how they function?

The major structural difference between an SLR and a twin lens or a rangefinder camera is the viewfinder. With an SLR, what we see through the viewfinder is a projection made by the lens onto a focus screen under the prism that is redirected by the camera’s mirror into the viewfinder. This means that the field of view we see through the viewfinder is exactly the same as the image that is projected onto either the film or the digital image sensor. On twin lens and rangefinder cameras, however, the viewfinder or rangefinder is an optical device separated from the main lens: rather than projecting the main lens’ exact field of view, the viewfinder or rangefinder is set to simulate the main lens’ field of view.

The structure of an SLR also makes it possible to easily change the camera’s lens: when the lens, and therefore the field of view, is changed, the new field of view is reflected in the camera’s viewfinder.

SHOW ME 1.2 The camera’s shutter

The shutter is the camera mechanism that controls how long light is permitted to hit the camera’s film or sensor.

There are two types of mechanical shutters: focal plane shutters and leaf shutters. The fo...