Week One Posts_ BK

1.a. I took this photograph on my third day in Rome while on the walking/bus tour hosted by the John Cabot University Orientation. I took it on my Nikon 5100 and used Lightroom for the post-production process using features such as full light, contrast, exposure and vibrance in order to enhance the image. The subject of the photograph are the ruins I saw as I was walking towards the coliseum coming from the JCU Tiber campus. Would inspired me the most about this composition that drew me in to taking to picture was the glow of the sun and the intertwining of nature with these historic, artificial, beautiful ruins. I wanted the sun to appear in an object in the composition as well, yet at the same time make sure my photo was not backlight so that the ruins would still be visible and not in silhouette. I also like the small patch of grass in the bottom left hand corner and the sky- and how it frames the ruins in the center. I am not sure specifically what these ruins are called exactly because they did not give us much time to stop and admire the ruins and the group leader did not really explain what we were walking past. But it is okay because I know how to get here and I would definitely like to come back and take more pictures around this area soon.-BK

1.b. I took this photograph last semester as part of a series where I experimented with light and a variety of light source. I worked with aperture mood and long exposures using a tri-pod to hold my camera still for shutter speeds ranging from 16-30 seconds. I used light sources of candles, glow sticks, firecrackers, and a variety of lamps, Christmas lights, and flashlights. The goal of my experimentation with this series was to use different sources of light to see the effect they had on the composition once captured through the lens. The effect of this photograph was completely natural; I did not edit it in post-production because I thought it was unusually great the way it turned out on its own. The subject of the photograph is my sister and her friend, holding teddy bears and tangled in Christmas lights. The shutter speed for this image was I think about 24 seconds. My sister was my muse for most of my photographs because I bribed her with a present for sitting still for me for so long. It was a fun experience though and good sibling bonding because my sister loves photography as well. -BK

2. ‘Depth of field’ is an extremely important component of the art of photograph. There are a variety of types of depths of field because this is what is used to define the subject of ones photograph and control the viewers’ focus. A short depth of field is used when you want to isolate your foreground subject from the background. Short depth of field is used for portraits and macro-photography or any situation where the photograph focuses on one main subject, leaving the remainder of the composition a little blurrier de-stressing its importance. Then a large depth of field leaves more of an equal focus on all subjects of the image. This is commonly used when taking photographs of landscapes or any scenarios where the photographer wants every detail of their composition to be in focus. The image I choose to illustrate depth of field is a photograph I took two summers ago in Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania where I took a photography master class for the day. The photo is part of an exercise we did to help use understand how to control depth of field. My photo demonstrates ‘shallow depth of field’ shown by how the front subject is in focus and the rest of the image is blurred out of focus. -BK

3. Louis Daguerre was born in France in the year of 1789; his interest in lighting effects from the opera lead to him experimenting with the different ways that light effects on translucent paintings. He began these experiments beginning in the 1920s and during the latter part of the decade he teamed up with Joseph Niepce to help Niepce enhance the photography process that Niepce had began to invent. Daguerre improved upon Niepce’s process and developed a more convenient and effect way to produce photograph images- labeling his method of photography ‘the daguerreotype’. It was said the invention of ‘the daguerreotype’ was done by accident in 1835 when Dauguerre put an exposed plate in his chemical cupboard then came back a few days later to find his image had developed due to the presence of mercury vapor from a broken thermometer. This discovery reduced the exposure time in the developing process from eight hours to thirty minutes. The photograph I choose is an example of a Daguerreotype photograph. -BK