martedì 24 gennaio 2012

Nikki Key - Week 1

I took this photo last time I was in Venice, with a point-and-shoot Nikon digital camera.  I think it captures the essence of everything Venice, from the bustling tourists to the quaint boat in the waterway.  I love how colorful the scene was.

Shutter speed refers to the amount of time the film is exposed to light coming into the camera, i.e. the exposure time.  Shutter speed represents the amount of time that the shutter remains open while taking a photograph.  The duration of this exposure can greatly alter the photograph, as seen above, where a pinwheel was photographed at various shutter speeds.  With motion, lower shutter speeds can produce a blurred image of the motion, while extremely fast shutter speeds can make a moving object appear awkwardly frozen on the spot.  Extended exposure times can even capture lightning and light blurs.

Louis Daguerre, whose self-portrait is above, was a French painter in the early 1800's.  He had worked with Joseph Niepce, who successfully took the first photographic image, only to have them quickly fade away.  By accident, Daguerre exposed a plate to mercury vapor, and to his surprise came back to an successfully sustained image.  He eventually sold his rights to the process to the French government, and it soon became practiced throughout Europe and in the United States.

Daguerre's invention was named the "Daguerretype," was the first photographic process that actually worked.  Using a copper plate, it produces an image that is a direct positive from the camera.  At first, the exposure time was very lengthy, so only still objects were photographed, but as it became more popular, others perfected the process down to a matter of seconds.  Consequently, it became popular for portraits and landscape photos, as exemplified above with the daguerretypes of San Francisco.

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