Chapter 9 notes (pg. 202-208)

Landscapes

• landscape photography can be firmly located in the real world, filled with ecological devastation and human artifacts, or it can portray an idealized version of what we want nature to be-pure and magnificent.
• focus on the natural world

Landmarks in Landscape Photography

• when photographers first looked for inspiration for what to photograph, they looked to paintings and they looked at the land.
• Watkins-took photos in yosemite valley and his huge photographs were among the first to be made as art.
• Adams - also inspired by yosemite valley
• his landscape photography always tried to capture the experience of being in the wilderness.
• our way of seeing the natural world was forever changed because of adams's images.

Ansel adams at wawona tunnel Yosemite Valley

Photographing the Landscape

• Composition is one of the most important aspects of landscape photography
• viewpoint is is the most important part of composition
• Landscape photographers pay careful attention to where they position the camera
• Value, an images light and dark areas, is especially important in black and white
• one goal of good composition is to achieve a balance between unity and variety
• extreme unity occurs when all the parts and objects in your image are related to each other
• Variety refers to all the diverse art elements found in a picture
• balancing unity and variety creates art that is interesting to look at without being chaotic and disturbing

Light

• There are two times during the day when many professional landscape photographers do most of their work-just after sunrise and just before sunset.
• shapes and textures are emphasized by side lighting
• direct lighting creates the highlights and shadows that make a landscape seem three-dimensional

Chapter 8 notes

• Architectural photographs are indirect portraits.
• if you focus on the details of a building, it can be an exploration of abstract images.
• important key: use line to lead the viewer's eye through an architectural image.
• observe the space that surrounds the objects or buildings in your photographs
• also consider how a buildings surroundings can help make your photograph stronger
• learn to look for pattern in your photo
• architectural photography usually has as much sharpness in it as possible, no blurry
• big view- the wide angle overall view. this means that the photographer was farther away from the building being photographed or the photographer was using a wide angle lense
• perspective distortion-appears as a strong converging lines in a building, where the sides of the building angle in toward each other instead of looking parallel as they are in reality.
• farther you are from the building, the less distortion you'll see
• Detail shot-features the individual architectural elements of a buildings interior or exterior

Architecture Notes

• trying to show personality of space
• color contrast to give sense of entire space
• proportion
• Frank Lloyd Wright uses nature to bring out his architecture
• you will see line shape and form and other elements are naturally in architecture, good for photography
• bring out emotion in architecture with use of light
• platinum papers used for making bombs and munitions-prices were expensive
• Frederick Evan who used platinum paper gave up photography when they banned platinum papers
• use of value gives a sense of space
• in detailed shots focus on specific details in shot
• Ezra Stoller- started out as an architect but found photography more interesting focused on value, line, shape, and form
• focus on full view of the space and emotions connected to it, like a portrait
• patterns dominate almost every part of the image such as bricks fabric and wallpaper

Movie Notes

• In the daily news they only took pictures
• 6 to 7 editions a day
• put the picture up very big to attract attention from people so that they could buy the newspaper
• In the evening photograph showed people never seen before
• Wanted news so bad that they snuck a camera in an execution chamber and took one of someone sitting in the electric chair
• photographs began to replace drawings
• people wanted to believe that photographs were true
• photographs transformed little things to objects of desire
• Babe Ruth was second most photographed person to advertise stuff
• photographs of celebrities got people obsessed

Proportion- Big to small

Baraka

Baraka was a very good nonverbal film that shared many pictures such as churches, landscapes, religious ceremonies, cities, people, tribes, and ancient ruins from 24 different countries with 152 different locations. What was interesting to me was that the film had no plot, no actors, and no script. The images were beautiful and contained a lot of the elements that we studied in photography class. I loved how it mainly portrayed the different cultures, countries, and people. It showed images that I had not even known existed in the world, such as the tribe of men that chanted, danced, and waved their hands in the air in unison.

Facebook pictures

Dear Shivani,
I looked over your Tahoe album on facebook and enjoyed flipping through the pictures. I didnt know you snowboard. There wasn't many elements and principles, but its okay because it's only facebook. I did like some of your pictures such as the one with the camera looking up at a tree covered in snow. Also, there was one with two snowboarders to the left side and the sun coming up behind the trees in the center of the picutre.
-- Evin