Throughout the course of this class I learned quite a few things about digital nature photography. In this blog I will just highlight a few of the things I learned. My first blog posts were mainly about real-life digital nature photographers, so I figured I would talk a little about them. The first photographer I interviewed was Ansel Adams. He was a pioneer not only in the art of natural landscape photography, but also in the field of environmental preservation. The next photographer I featured, Chris Peterson, is the photographer and editor for Glacier Park Magazine. He went on a 100 day journey through Glacier National Park to capture undiscovered beauty. The next photographer I featured was Jim Reed. He specializes in extreme weather photography. I continued to look at the work of other established photographers, but realized they all had a lot in common. I learned that great photography requires patience, hard work, an eye for the irregular, a good technical knowledge, and a little legwork among other things.
I learned the importance of exposure when taking photos. Even though I currently only shoot pictures with a point-and-shoot camera, I have seen, even with automation, how the wrong settings can cause the photo to be blurry or over/underexposed. Aperture and shutter settings need to be adjusted for each shot. The first step in determining your aperture and shutter speed settings is to first measure the light of your subject. This is done by using a histogram and spot metering, evaluative/matrix metering, or averaging metering. When the frame is bright, the camera, in auto mode, might choose a combination of a smaller aperture (large f-stop and large depth of field) along with a fast shutter speed. In manual mode you have to determine the best aperture/shutter speed combination. In aperture priority mode, you have to choose your desired aperture while the camera chooses a shutter speed to compensate. Shutter priority mode allows the user to choose a desired shutter speed while the camera chooses a aperture to compensate.
There are certain elements to look for when taking photos that make it more appealing. I always just took pictures based on what I liked and never even really gave much thought to why I liked what I was shooting. You might subconsciously think of these things, but never realize the reasons just as I did. These include red is more attractive than yellow, large draws more attention than small, difference draws more attention than conformity, jagged lines are more striking than curved ones, diagonal lines are more attractive than vertical, sharpness is more attractive than blur, light is more attractive than dark. Keeping these things in mind can really give you some eye-catching photos.
Digital photography has so many benefits over 35mm photography. As I was growing up, my dad and grandfather were always talking about their 35mm camera equipment and its abilities. My grandfather was an old school black and white photographer who had his own small dark room in every house he owned. I remember him saying that he liked photographing in black and white because it was so much easier to develop and manipulate in the dark room than color. Looking at the easy process involved in digital shooting and developing makes 35mm photography seem so archaic. What used to take hours in basic processing now only takes minutes. 35mm developing was more of a trial-and-error process than digital processing. My grandfather would often go through several sheets of silver halide photo paper when trying to manually dodge and burn and experiment with different filters to get the final product he was looking for. With Photoshop, the modern photographer can make all these edits without having to waste paper or extra chemicals.
Finally, I learned there is no substitute for a digital SLR when taking digital photographs. Even though my point-and-shoot digital camera is about 8 years old, the same issues exist with present day point-and-shoot cameras. These types of cameras do not allow the photographer to have much control over features that allow for desired effects. These limitations include non-interchangeable lenses, inability of the photographer to set aperture, inability of the photographer to set shutter speed, inability of the photographer to set ISO, inability of the photographer to utilize lens filters, and inability of the photographer to utilize external lenses. These are large disadvantages when you are trying to shoot a picture that camera does not have the capability to shoot. Examples of this include trying to obtain a smooth textured waterfall with long shutter speeds and trying to reduce reflections off the water with a polarizing filter. Digital SLR cameras have the ability to shoot such photos.
My progress throughout this class, I think, has been great. I took a black and white 35mm photography class in high school, where I gained a basic knowledge of SLR photography and 35mm development. After taking the class I got a 35mm SLR camera so that I could have more control over shooting photos than the 35mm point-and-shoot camera that I previously owned. This was just as the digital photography technology was gaining feasible headway. Because of the lower costs associated with shooting digital compared to 35mm, I started to shoot digital with my point-and-shoot. So, I forgot a little of what I learned in my high school photography class. This digital nature photography class was a good refresher of what I previously knew, but forgot due to lack of use. I also learned plenty of new ideas including the effects of aperture on depth of field, how different lens speeds affect the brightness/quality of the shot, the abilities of new lenses and cameras, the abilities of editing software, and the abilities of extension tubes and teleconverters. The teacher of my first photography class in high school was not convinced that digital photography would last into the future. She would constantly question the archival abilities of digital photographs in comparison with the archival abilities of 35mm photographs. I have come to the belief that although digital prints might fade quicker than 35mm prints depending on the printer, both will eventually fade. The advantage of digital is that it can be stored for years on disks that can be used to reprint the photo later with absolutely no fading. There are just so many advantages utilizing digital photography that make it more inviting. I think that there is a general misunderstanding of what Photoshop is all about as well. I was always told that 35mm photography is a true art that is quickly fading away due to the ridiculous abilities of programs in the digital world like Photoshop. After taking this class, I have learned that this generalization, although true for some digital photography, is not true for the whole of digital photography. Programs like Photoshop allow digital photographers to do the same things that 35mm photographers used to do in the darkroom with more ease and less waste. It is up to the photographer to decide whether to alter the photograph beyond its original state or to keep it in its original state with basic edits. This class has re-sparked my interest in photography and has made me realize that I really want to take photographs a little more seriously than I previously have with my digital point-and-shoot.
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