shutterhack

Taken with a Nikon D50 and AF Zoom-Nikkor 70-300mm f/4-5.6G lens

Let's think about the process of turning three dimensional reality into a photograph, and the factors that go into determining how that image will appear. None of the items below is a manipulation, just the basic tools of the technology that every photographer must manage to produce a photograph. Yet, each has a profound affect on how the image will appear.

First, there is the choice of lens. Depending on whether its a wide angle or a telephoto, or anything in-between, the perspective created by the choice of lens will have a dramatic affect on how the image appears. The use of a telephoto will cause the primary subject and any background objects to appear very close together. The choice of a wide angle lens will create the impression of spaciousness or distance between objects at varying distances within the frame.

The position of the camera relative to the subject is critical. The choice of camera position could mean that some parts of the potential frame are deleted while others are accentuated. Remember, the painter includes while the photographer excludes.

Shutter speed can mean a totally frozen moment in time, or a blur. Which is real? Which moment is chosen? Again, the photographer exercises considerable editorial discretion though the use of photography's basic tools.

Aperture along with focal length determines depth of field. We are all used to this photographic conceit. Some items in the frame are sharp, others are out of focus. This seems quite natural to us because we have learned that this is part of the photographic reproduction process. But the real world does not appear this way. Our eyes are constantly autofocusing, and we are usually completely unaware that when we are focused on something close by distant objects will be out of focus, because the moment we look at them they jump into focus. Not so in a photograph, which forces us to see the world in a quite artificial manner with regard to focus. Yet, we accept a portrait of a person with a blurred background as being quite natural. Seeing this way needs to be learned.

The ISO of the film used, or the sensor setting, can mean the addition of grain or noise. Many fine images over the past century and half since the invention of photography have been grainy, sometimes for effect and sometimes of necessity. But, grain doesn't exist in the real world. It is a function of the technology.

In the end the image produced will likely be regarded as a straight photograph. Unmanipulated, unaltered, undoctored and unmodified. Ya, right!

Labels: AF Zoom-Nikkor 70-300mm f/4-5.6G, Chendering Fisheries Complex, Nikon D50, People, Philosophy of Photography, Photography, Portrait

Posted by Mohd Fadzly Abdul Mubin on Wednesday, July 4, 2007 at 2:50 PM | Permalink