Wednesday 27 October 2010

Photography: Health & Safety

Here's the Health & Safety Rules for our photography class...... 

Darkroom rules
  • No eating or drinking
  • No running or fooling around
  • No coats or bags on the floor
  • Dry hands before using electrics
  • Use tongs to handle photo paper
  • Don’t mix the wet and dry side of the darkroom

Studio rules
  • No eating or drinking
  • No running or fooling around
  • No coats or bags on the floor
  • Beware of cables on the floor
  • The flash heads can get hot, handle them with care
  • Don’t look directly into the flash heads
  • Be careful when using the paper background system
  • Handle all equipment with care

Friday 8 October 2010

Photography Basics

This is just part of my necessary college coursework...... Photography
   (pronounced /fәˈtɒɡrәfi/[1]) (from Greek φωτο and γραφία) is the process, activity and art of creating still or moving pictures by recording radiation on a sensitive medium, such as a photographic film, or an electronic sensor. Light patterns reflected or emitted from objects activate a sensitive chemical or electronic sensor during a timed exposure, usually through a photographic lens in a device known as a camera that also stores the resulting information chemically or electronically. Photography has many uses for business, science, art and pleasure.

Camera

   is a device that records images, either as a still photograph or as moving images known as videos or movies. The term comes from the camera obscura (Latin for "dark chamber"), an early mechanism of projecting images where an entire room functioned as a real-time imaging system; the modern camera evolved from the camera obscura.

Shutter
   In photography, a shutter is a device that allows light to pass for a determined period of time, for the purpose of exposing photographic film or a light-sensitive electronic sensor to light to capture a permanent image of a scene.

Aperture

   In optics, an aperture is a hole or an opening through which light travels. In Photography this can be measured in increments called f-stops.

Lens
   The of a camera captures the light from the subject and brings it to a focus on the film or detector.

Exposure control
   The size of the aperture and the brightness of the scene controls the amount of light that enters the camera during a period of time, and the shutter controls the length of time that the light hits the recording surface. Equivalent exposures can be made with a larger aperture and a faster shutter speed or a corresponding smaller aperture and with the shutter speed slowed down.

Sunday 3 October 2010

Tattoos!

Well, good afternoon! After a little discussion with fellow college-mate James, he told me he could design me a tattoo! Happy times!
I've only really this year come up with the idea of an actual tattoo i'd love to permanently ink on my body, (or forearm actually!)
It'd be great to own an actual sketch of what i'd like, so when the time comes, i can hopefully just take it in somewhere and get it done.
And James is definitely the person i'd want to have design it, i've seen his tattoo based designs, immense! 

Basically, all i'm wanting is a tribute for my parents who aren't actually dead, but still.. in the form of an anchor.. because they share a love for the sea. They're not sailors, and neither am i. But, meh!
I actually own this necklace (great website, btw!) and i love it's form, so i'd definitely would like it to look like that when inked onto myself.


Next, i'd like it in a cameo style border, i have a love for cameos, so this tattoo will be all love!
I think it'd have to be quite delicate as i wouldn't want it to over power the whole tattoo! 
The internet provided me me the results of a rope effect somewhat on the inside of an oval border. Thank you Google, although, i'd have to make some changes:


Then to top it off, above my beloved parents name sprawled in separate banners, above and below the anchor, with the typical sailor 'mom' font. The image, below; is actually very similar to the original tattoo design i was hoping to get, before i changed my mind for this design.. mm, decisions, decisions!

Now when do i get this beast of a tattoo done? Well that is the question! 
When my parents aren't going to throw out of the house for it i guess!
Watch this space!

Friday 1 October 2010

Kickin' that bucket

What a quiet, runny-nosed evening i've had.
Thanks to whoever gave me this damned cold!
After watching Bram Stoker's  Dracula (1992 version with Winona Ryder and Gary Oldman) which i thought was pretty decent, i started to channel-flick, hoping to find something worth feasting my eyes on, to pass some time before i felt crappy enough to go bed.
I came across 'The Bucket List' on channel 4, i think. A film I've always wanted to see, but never ended up owning the dvd, nor seeing it in cinema.


I missed half of the film, but what i saw was somewhat inspirational for if i ever come to find myself in of having a form of terminal cancer, i'd like to think that i wouldn't lie in bed feeling sorry for myself, waiting to die.
It did make me a tad emotional, i'm such a sucker for things like that, but luckily noone was around to see me swimming in my own tears! 
I think only Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman were perfect for their roles, (couldn't imagine anybody else becoming the characters), Nicholson being the typical rich, 3-times divorced guy, and Freeman, the loving family man just wanting some free-time after lifetime of working to provide for his family. Fair enough if you ask me.
I was somewhat upset mostly to see that Morgan's character Carter died first, but i knew it was inevitable! I think the fact that it's difficult not to like Freeman plays a big part in my emotional attachment to his character.
Overall, a heart-warming film! I don't want Morgan Freeman nor Jack Nicholson to ever die! :( What a awful day it'll be...

Pinhole Photography College Work!

Hello! Well, this is the first ever blog I've written in, i guess there's a first for everything..
Each individual student on the National Diploma course has been asked to create a blog account.
So here is mine!
As shown below is some results from my attempt at pinhole photography:

But first,
 My Vans Pinhole Camera, woohoo!
Annie & Sheera with their Pringle tin cameras!

 Before & After, lightened and rotated using Adobe Photoshop
Used a friend as the subject for this!

For this photograph, i must have exposed it roughly for 2 minutes, correct me if I'm wrong though.. It's easy to loose track of exposure time when shooting and developing.
Really quite pleased with the result of this photograph, the first 7 or so images i shot all turned out to be complete failures!
So it was a delight for me to find photographs that weren't ridiculously  over-exposed!  


                                                




This was the first print that was somewhat a success, using my vans shoebox! I was finally happy, developing blacked out prints can be somewhat depressing.
I can't be sure on how long i exposed this for, I'm sure my tutor could tell me! He's a genius.
Mm, do i guess how long i did this for?.... A minute or two maybe?


Ooh, and here's a how-to page scanned from my sketchbook...

Hope it's readable. :)