Sunday, November 25, 2007

A short history and types of photography.

Now, enough of chats and talking, lets get down to some serious business.

Photography, an art of recording light on light-sensitive medium (a film or a sensor), began some 1000 years ago. From then, art of photography has come a long way.
Now it can be said that photography can be of three main types.
1) Monochrome or Black and white Photography
2) Color Photography
3) Digital Photography.

Among these, Black and white Photography was the earliest form to arrive and still is the favorite form of photography for some artistic photographers for its "classic" look.













Color photography
arrived in the 1860's and captured the market for its ability to capture the vibrant colors of nature (and the man-made colors too). Manufacturers like Agfa, Kodak and Fuji dominated the market of color films. And also, color films can be positive too. These are called transparencies or slide films, and are used in a slide projector mainly.
With the advent of technology, traditional photojournalists were put to strong competition from television on delivering images fast enough, especially when working in a remote location. In 1990, Kodak introduced the first digital camera DCS 100, and with it Digital photography was born.

Digital cameras use an electronic image sensor to record the image instead of a film.
Digital photography has become so popular that giants like Nikon and Canon has announced that they will stop producing film SLR cameras from 2005 and 2006 respectively.



But whether it is film or digital, the basic techniques like composition, exposure, etc remains the same. The techniques which we will begin to learn from the next post.

Before we part, here is a list of different forms of photography:

* Architectural photography
* Candid photography
* Cloudscape photography
* Documentary photography
* Fashion photography
* Fine art photography
* Forensic photography
* Food photography
* Glamour photography
* Landscape art
* Macro photography
* Nature photography
* Photojournalism
* Portrait photography
* Sports photography
* Still life photography
* Stock photography
* Street photography
* Travel photography
* Wildlife photography

Amongst these, we will learn and discuss every form individually, except Forensic photography, about which I have no idea.

But guys, before we go into the different forms, let’s learn the basics.
In the next post, we will discuss the most important factor of Photography- LIGHT.

Thursday, November 15, 2007

Some words about the blog

Well, after some initial talks and chats about my introduction to photography, lets get down to the purpose of this blog.
As I mentioned it earlier, the focus of this blog will be on photography. If you do not know anything about camera, great! You’ll learn something at least to out knowledge your over-smart friend who knows it all about clicking shutter and taking photographs.
Your photographs will be better than they used to be before going through these instructions. I never assure that your photos will be as stunning and award winning as the National-Geographic ones…

because they require not only exceptional skills and patience, but some real expensive gears too. Pssst…. (only between you and me) I myself cannot shoot like them too, only I do dream of doing it someday.


And if you are the one who really have some knowledge about photography, it is even better. Let’s discuss. I write the posts, you read them. Whenever you feel something needs to be added, add it. In the comments.

One thing which I can assure you is, you will not require any big lenses, or expensive SLRs to follow the lessons in this blog. I personally did not have them when I started my career, nor do I believe one requires very expensive gear to become a photographer.
I always believe that, “It is not the camera which matters, but the person behind the camera” You will be requiring a camera (film or digital) which has manual settings for exposure, and a zoom lens though, which are not at all expensive, and are the basic gears of photography.

Another thing you can be sure that this blog is not going to be an usual dull tutorial. Here, not only we’ll discuss about photographic tips-n-tricks; I’ll include some of fave photographs on the net, give you some light anecdotes of my personal experiences as a photographer, and provide references from the articles which have helped me to become a photographer.

So, get ready guys, take out the clickboxes. Let’s hit the floor.

Friday, November 9, 2007

My introduction to photography.

They say, it’s all in the genes.

May be it’s the truest explanation for my passion about photography. My grandpa was an artist, and a photographer. I have seen his works, but not him in flesh and blood. When I was very small, he passed away. Leaving his works behind, for us to see, and be amazed.

Never did I imagined, I would be a photographer, when I was a child, or even till I was an adult. I did not have a camera of my own till I was 18. One of my cousins gifted a Canon point-and-shoot at that age. The moment I gripped the machine and looked through its view-finder, I was sure this is the right present for me. I went to a tour of Rajasthan with that cam, like every other family goes on holidays.

I clicked away happily, with the first camera of my life, and many rolls of film. I captured every thing I liked. Every house, every tree every local with their strange attire fascinated me. I shot the traditional ones, with me and my family as the main subject and the environment as a minuscule background. And I shot some frames which I liked the way it should be. I shot almost 150 shots, in the entire trip. It would have been much more, if my dad had not stopped me for from “overclicking” many a times. Actually he was not sure how the shot will come out after we developed them. (Speaking of that, even I was not very sure about the results! ;)

After we returned, the rolls were developed, printed. And to the amazement of my dad, and me, the pics proved to be great! And what more, the whimsical shots of mine were generally better than the traditional ones.

But how?

I did not have any idea about composition; neither did I have any professional training in photography. The only thing was, I think, my genes, which I carry from my granddad and my love for photography. These two things made sure I was clicking right and the compositions were just fine.

After that, many suggested I should have some formal training in photography. But I did not. Instead, I got myself an SLR, and searched the internet. I found some resources which gave me enough knowledge and right momentum to be a professional photographer, not to mention , along with a great deal of practice.

Today, when I decide to start a blog, I want it to be about photography. Where I can share my knowledge, which I have gathered from the net, with the young budding photographers. And also the much better and experienced lensmen, will help me to enhance my knowledge, by posting comments, if they come across my blog.

Isn’t it the nicest thing about this internet thing, that we can come together and discuss issues which we could never do without meeting each other?