DIY: using Notan for composition, part 2

Jan Maklak, Digital Photography School

***

Uh-oh, looks like I've painted myself into a corner--again. There's not a lot of information on the web about using Notan in photography and what's there is very old. I could approach it as post-processing, but many photographers feel that that's cheating. To them a true photo is a capture of the moment. And I can't say I disagree.

Previously I talked about Notan--what it is and how it's used by artists. Here, in part 2, I planned to look at how it can be applied to photography. Granted, balancing light and dark values, as well as framing the picture, while capturing the image can be daunting, especially when you're starting out at photography.

So here's what information I did capture that photographers may find useful.

Available as a free ebook, Arthur Hammond's Pictorial Composition in Photography (American Photographic Publishing Company, 1920) is a small book with some big ideas. He prefaces his book by saying,

To tell a photographer how to compose his pictures is like telling a musician how to compose music, an author how to write a novel or an actor how to act a part. Such things can only grow out of the fulness and experience of life.

Another book relating Notan and photography, one that was elusive, is The Command to Look: A Formula for Picture Success (Camera Craft Publishing Company, 1937) by William Mortensen. This link is to a PDF file with photos of the book, somehow very fitting.

As for framing your shots, you can look at these articles, but it seems to me the information in the 2 books above is more useful. Article 1: Framing Your Shots – Photography Composition Technique. Article 2: 25 Images Using Framing in Composition – Weekly Inspiration. While article number 2 takes the word framing quite literally, not putting boundaries on your photo works too.

***

M.Farkas Fowler, On the way to Dillingham

***

 
For an idea of the workflow involved in digital post-processing, take a look at some of the articles on this photo.net page.

-- Marge

Fluid stone

It's time for me to take a break, so here is some lovely artwork to feast your eyes on.

Adam Schallau: The 2nd Wave of Coyote Buttes North. Vermilion Cliffs National Monument, Arizona

***

Adam Schallau, Waves of Stone

***

Jody Skowronek: Fluid Stone, 2012

***

Jody Skowronek, Fluid Stone, 2012

***

Matthew Vogt: Paria River, Utah, 2013

***

Matthew Vogt, Paria River, 2013

***

Matthew Simmonds: Chapter House

***

Matthew Simmonds, Sculptures in Marble and Stone

***

Stein A, Rypdal, Hiking The Wave

***

Stein A, Rypdal, Hiking The Wave, rypdal.net

***

-- Marge

DIY: Backdrops for your selfies (and other photos)

This being the age of the selfie, it seems to me that knowing a little about backdrops for your photos and a reminder to consider the light source are in order.  My favorite mistake is taking a picture too close to the window and having one side of the subject washed out, the other too dark (see the about me photo below).

While setting up a home-based photographer's studio may be a bit much, there are some simple things that will help. Autumn in her blog, it's always autumn, has some great tips, especially for photographing babies. Her about page is a delight.  Her article about "how to set up a DIY photo studio in your home" comes in 2 parts. Here's one of her photos.

***

Baby in white blanket. its always autumn

***

She also has a post compiling ideas for backdrops.

Buzzfeed has some great ideas in "32 Unbelievably Cheap And Beautiful DIY Photo Backdrops." Many of the ideas presented assume that you have a bare or light colored wall to shoot against. An alternative is hanging a light colored sheet or taping up plain paper that comes by the roll. Some of the instructions assume you have a photo booth.

***

Confetti backdrop, Buzzfeed

***

Building a photo booth may require a little more investment of time and money, maybe not. A photo booth can just be an area set aside to taking pictures. A tripod for the camera is probably a necessity. Take look at Photography Concentrate's "How to Create A Simple Photo Booth," for pointers on camera, lens, light, and trigger. You can find instructions for a collapsible photobooth that uses an old laptop, webcam, and photo printer at instructables.

***

Collapsible photobooth, instructables

***

An alternate route for a photo booth is LiveBooth for iPad. A demo is available on YouTube.

-- Marge

Art: ink in water

Pery Burge, "Nova Nova"

***

Artist Pery Burge photographed ink in water.  In the abstract of a paper she published she described the process thus:

Radial spreads are made by placing different types of ink and paint over each other. Then, when gravity 'activates' the spread, causing the ink to move outward, the resulting patterns of ink are photographed.

More of her work can be seen at her site Chronoscapes and in her photostream on Flickr. In an article at WonderHowTo, titled "Creating the Cosmos with Ink, Paint & Water," there is a short description of Pery's photographic process.

***

Pery Burge, "Deep Winds Rising"

***

In the video below Pery used lines from T.S. Eliot's "Four Quartets."  You can find a full version of Four Quartets at ColdBacon (warning: sudden music).  I found this interesting site -- Pearltrees -- while looking for info on iPB Soundscapes. Here's Pery's video.

***

***

 -- Marge

Wikipedia Takes America

While watching the movie "Troy," the one with Brad Pitt, last night I noticed an Egyptian influence in the architectural design of the temple to Apollo.  Wondering if this could be so, or it was the producer's idea, I began to research. This is some of what I found.

Troy was probably in modern-day Turkey, and that it was a cultural gateway between Greece and the Mid-East.  The period of Greek History to which this story refers is called the Greek Dark Ages, because little tangible evidence is available.

More importantly I found that there is a Wikipedia campaign this month "where participants compete to take photographs of as many local sights as possible for Wikipedia articles where they are needed."

Wikipedia Takes America is a campaign throughout September 2012 to organize Wikipedia Takes Your City photo scavenger hunts across the United States, to coincide with the international Wiki Loves Monuments architectural photography contest.

 The Wiki Loves Monuments page states:

In the U.S., the contest will focus on sites on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP), which have been organized on Wikipedia by state and county.

BTW, if you're looking for something else to do, this map of archaic Greece needs to be replaced with an SVG version.


-- Marge

Documentary photography

This post was inspired by photographer J.J. Bentley, who posts regularly to Google+.

JJ's work reminds me of that by Dorothea Lange, Robert Frank, and Elliott Erwitt.  Many of Dorothea's most memorable photos come from work done during the Depression.  Robert Frank traveled across America taking photos; his major work, a book titled The Americans, is said to have redefined photography and documented "the tensions between the optimism of the 1950s and the realities of class and racial differences. (Wikipedia, Robert Frank article) "  Elliot Erwitt is one of my favorite photographers included in the exhibit, "The Family of Man" (which is also available in book form).  This exhibit was shown worldwide and drew crowds wherever it was shown according to MoMA's blog, Inside/Out.  Here is an Erwitt photo from The Family of Man exhibit that is featured in an article in the New York Times blog Lens:

All of these photographers work in a field called documentary photography.

JJ's work is augmented with interviews of his subjects and comments on what he sees.  He has a website that's pretty cryptic; but his posts to Google+ are far more illuminating:

The Worthy Xavier:

The Unguarded:

Leave It on the Ground:

To me it's the substance of documentary photography that makes it beautiful.

-- Marge