All About Photographic Filters

Filters

In photography and videography, a filter is a camera accessory consisting of an optical filter that can be inserted into the optical path. The filter can be of a square or oblong shape and mounted in a holder accessory, or, more commonly, a glass or plastic disk in a metal or plastic ring frame, which can be screwed into the front of or clipped onto the camera lens.

Filters modify the images recorded. Sometimes they are used to make only subtle changes to images; other times the image would simply not be possible without them. In monochrome photography coloured filters affect the relative brightness of different colours; red lipstick may be rendered as anything from almost white to almost black with different filters. Others change the colour balance of images, so that photographs under incandescent lighting show colours as they are perceived, rather than with a reddish tinge. There are filters that distort the image in a desired way, diffusing an otherwise sharp image, adding a starry effect, etc. Supplementary close-up lenses may be classified as filters. Linear and circular polarising filters reduce oblique reflections from non-metallic surfaces.

Many filters absorb part of the light available, necessitating longer exposure. As the filter is in the optical path, any imperfections—non-flat or non-parallel surfaces, reflections (minimised by optical coating), scratches, dirt—affect the image.

There is no universal standard naming system for filters. The Wratten numbers adopted in the early twentieth century by Kodak, then a dominant force in film photography, are used by several manufacturers. Colour correction filters are often identified by a code of the form CC50Y—CC for colour correction, 50 for the strength of the filter, Y for yellow.

Optical filters are used in various areas of science, including in particular astronomy; they are essentially the same as photographic filters, but in practice often need far more accurately controlled optical properties and precisely defined transmission curves than filters exclusively for photographic use. Photographic filters sell in larger quantities at correspondingly lower prices than many laboratory filters. The article on optical filters has material relevant to photographic filters.

In digital photography the majority of filters used with film cameras have been rendered redundant by digital filters applied either in-camera or during post processing. Exceptions include the ultraviolet (UV) Ultra typically used to protect the front surface of the lens, the neutral density (ND) filter, the polarising filter and the infra red (IR) filter. The neutral density filter permits effects requiring wide apertures or long exposures to be applied to brightly lit scenes, while the graduated neutral density filter is useful in situations where the scene's dynamic range exceeds the capability of the sensor. Not using optical filters in front of the lens has the advantage of avoiding the reduction of image quality caused by the presence of an extra optical element in the light path and may be necessary to avoid vignetting when using wide-angle lenses.

Photo filters are commonly made from glass,resin plastics similar to those used for eyeglasses (such as CR-39), polyester and polycarbonate; sometimes acetate is used. Historically, filters were often made from gelatin, and color gels. While some filters are still described as gelatin or gel filters, they are no longer actually made from gelatin but from one of the plastics mentioned above.

Sometimes the filter is dyed in the mass, in other cases the filter is a thin sheet of material sandwiched between two pieces of clear glass or plastic.

Certain kinds of filters use other materials inside a glass sandwich; for example, polarizers often use various special films, netting filters have nylon netting, and so forth.

The rings on screw-on filters are often made of aluminum, though in more expensive filters brass is used. Aluminum filter rings are much lighter in weight, but can "bind" to the aluminum lens threads they are screwed in to, requiring the use of a filter wrench to get the filter off of the lens. Aluminum also dents or deforms more easily.

High quality filters are multi-coated, with multiple-layer optical coatings to reduce reflections. Uncoated filters can reflect up to 12% of the light, single-coated filter can reduce this considerably, and multi-coated filters can allow up to 99.8% of the light to pass through (0.2% unwanted reflection); the loss of light is not important, but part of the light is reflected inside the camera, producing flare and reducing the contrast of the image. Manufacturers brand their high-end multi-coated filters with different labels, for example:

B+W: MRC (Multi Resistant Coating), MRC nano (99.5% transmission, for XS-Pro series) Hoya: HMC (Hoya Multi Coating), HD (8-layer coating, 99.35% transmission) Heliopan: SH-PMC (8-layer coating, 99.8% transmission)

Manufacturers of lenses and filters have standardized on several different sets of sizes over the years.

The most common standard filter sizes for circular filters include 30.5 mm, 37 mm, 40.5 mm, 43 mm, 46 mm, 49 mm, 52 mm, 55 mm, 58 mm, 62 mm, 67 mm, 72 mm, 77 mm, 82 mm, 86 mm, 95 mm, 112 mm and 127 mm. Other filter sizes within this range may be hard to find since the filter size may be non-standard or may be rarely used on camera lenses. The specified diameter of the filter in millimeters indicates the diameter of the male threads on the filter housing. Thethread pitch is 0.5 mm, 0.75 mm or 1.0 mm, depending on the ring size. A few sizes (e.g. 30.5 mm) come in more than one pitch.

The filter diameter for a particular lens is commonly identified on the lens face by the ⌀symbol. For example, a lens marking may indicate: “⌀55mm” or “55⌀” meaning it would accept a 55mm filter or lens hood.

For square filters, 2" × 2", 3" × 3" and 4" × 4" were historically very common and are still made by some manufacturers. 100 mm × 100 mm is very close to 4" × 4", allowing use of many of the same holders, and is one of the more popular sizes currently (2006) in use; it is virtually a standard in the motion picture industry. 75 mm x 75 mm is very close to 3" × 3" and while less common today, was much in vogue in the 1990s.

The French manufacturer Cokin makes a wide range of filters and holders in three sizes which is collectively known as the Cokin System. "A" (amateur) size is 67 mm wide, “P” (professional) size is 84 mm wide, and “X Pro” is 130 mm wide. Many other manufacturers make filters to fit Cokin holders. Cokin also makes a filter holder for 100 mm filters, which they call the “Z” size. Most of Cokin's filters are made of optical resins such as CR-39. A few round filter elements may be attached to the square/rectangular filter holders, usually polarizers and gradient filters which both need to be rotated and are more expensive to manufacture.

Cokin formerly (1980s through mid-1990s) had competition from Hoya's Hoyarex system (75 mm x 75 mm filters mostly made from resin) and also a range made by Ambico, but both have withdrawn from the market. A small (84 mm) “system” range is still made (as of 2012) by Formatt Hitech. In general, square (and sometimes rectangular) filters from one system could be used in another system’s holders if the size was correct, but each made a different system of filter holder which could not be used together. Lee, Tiffen, Formatt Hitech and Singh Ray also make square / rectangular filters in the 100 × 100 and Cokin “P” sizes.

Gel filters are very common in square form, rarely being used in circular form. These are thin flexible sheets of gelatin or plastic which must be held in rigid frames to prevent them from sagging. Gels are made not only for use as photo filters, but also in a wide range of colors for use in lighting applications, particularly for theatrical lighting. Gel holders are available from all of the square “system” makers, but are additionally provided by many camera manufacturers, by manufacturers of gel filters, and by makers of expensive professional camera accessories (particularly those manufacturers which target the movie and television camera markets.

Square filter systems often have lens shades available to attach to the filter holders.

Graduated filters of a given width (100 mm, 67 mm, 84 mm, etc.) are often made oblong, rather than square, in order to allow the position of the gradation to be moved up or down in the picture. This allows, for example, the red part of a sunset filter to be placed at the horizon. These are used with the "system" holders described above.

Bayonet round filtersEdit

Certain manufacturers, most notably Rollei and Hasselblad, have created their own systems of bayonet mount for filters. Each design comes in several sizes, such as Bay I through Bay VIII for Rollei, and Bay 50 through Bay 104 for Hasselblad.

Starting in the 1930s, filters were also made in a sizing system known as a series mount. The filters themselves were round pieces of glass (or occasionally other materials) with no threads. Very early filters had no rims around the glass, but the more common later production filters had the glass mounted in metal rims. To mount the filters on a camera, the filter was placed between two rings; the mount ring either screwed into the lens threads or was slipped over the lens barrel and the retaining ring screws into the mounting ring to hold the filter in place. The series designations are generally written as Roman numerals, I to IX, though there are a few sizes not written that way, such as Series 4.5 and Series 5.5. Most Series filter sizes are now obsolete, production having ceased by the late 1970s. However, Series 9 became a standard of the motion picture industry and Series 9 filters are still produced and sold today, particularly for professional motion picture cinematography.

Source: Wikipeida

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The Three song rule

The Three Song Rule

Concert photography is the photography of activities relating to concerts and music. It encompasses photographs of a band or musician as well as coverage of a concert. It is a minor commercial endeavor that supports in part of the efforts for many independent photographers.

Like the technology of photography itself, the practice of photography has evolved and grown since the invention of the photographic art form in 1826 by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce. Concert photography began becoming popular with the advent of Rock & Roll, particularly during the height of popularity by such bands as The Beatles or the Rolling Stones. During the 1950s and 1960s, the desire for memorabilia was increased with every new musician or music group. During that time, some of the more respected music photographers included Gered Mankowitz (Rolling Stones), Robert Altman (Rolling Stone Magazine) and Ethan Russell (Jim Morrison) amongst others.

During the film era, photographers favored color negative film and medium-format cameras, especially by Hasselblad. Today, many more concerts are photographed with digital SLR cameras as the digital convenience provides quick detection of lighting mistakes and allows creative approaches to be reviewed immediately. In spite of diminishing film use, some concert photographers continue to shoot with film as they prefer the film aesthetic, and others are of the opinion that negative film captures more information than digital technology, and has less margin for exposure error. Certainly true in some cases, it should be noted that exposure latitude inherent in a camera's native Raw image format (which allows for more under- and over- exposure than JPEG) varies from manufacturer to manufacturer. All forms of RAW have a degree of exposure latitude which exceeds slide film - to which digital capture is commonly compared.

Three song rule

The three-song rule, only allows some concert photographers to shoot photos for the first three songs. During interview with Paul Natkin, widely considered as one of Chicago's greatest music photographers, he stated "The Rule started in the 80s with bands in New York, especially Springsteen. When a band played in New York, especially places like the Garden, they gave out tons of photo passes. At least half to paparazzi guys. Those people don't know how to photograph, their only option is to put a flash on a camera. A lot of people didn't even know how to change film, they knew they only had 36 shots. They were just doing it for the excitement of doing it. Bruce would go up on stage, and there would be 50 photographers, all shooting flashes in his face. I don't blame him, he walked off stage one night and said, we have to do something about this. Somebody said, why not just let them shoot the first fifteen minutes? Somebody figured out at a normal rock show, a song is about five minutes. Somebody said, let's just let them shoot the first three songs. So it started with him and people in that era. It was also that MTV started around that time, and everybody wanted to look perfect, the way they looked in their videos." According to a July 21, 2013 popphoto.com article, it could be for appearances; the artist looks best at the beginning of the show.

Source: Wikipedia

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All About Landscape Photography

Landscape Photography

Landscape photography shows spaces within the world, sometimes vast and unending, but other times microscopic. Landscape photographs typically capture the presence of nature but can also focus on man-made features or disturbances of landscapes.

Landscape photography is done for a variety of reasons. Perhaps the most common is to recall a personal observation or experience while in the outdoors, especially when traveling. Others pursue it particularly as an outdoor lifestyle, to be involved with nature and the elements, some as an escape from the artificial world.

Many landscape photographs show little or no human activity and are created in the pursuit of a pure, unsullied depiction of nature, devoid of human influence—instead featuring subjects such as strongly defined landforms, weather, and ambient light. As with most forms of art, the definition of a landscape photograph is broad, and may include rural or urban settings, 

industrial areas, and nature photography.

Notable landscape photographers include Ansel Adams, Mark Gray, Galen Rowell, and Edward Weston.

Some of the most important and celebrated landscape photographers have been motivated by an appreciation of the beauty of the natural environment and a desire to see it preserved. For example, Ansel Adams spoke passionately in defense of the natural world.

Landscape photography commonly involves daylight photography of natural features of land, sky and waters, at a distance—though some landscapes may involve subjects in a scenic setting nearby, even close-up, and sometimes at night.

The photography of artificial scenery, too—such as farm fields, orchards and groves, gardens and flower beds, even ornamental architecture and common public and private spaces—may be considered "landscape" photography as well. Even the presence of man-made art (e.g. Sculpture), or structures (buildings, roads and bridges, etc.) -- if presented in artistic settings or appearing (or photographed) in artistic style—may be considered "landscape."

"Garden photography" and nature photography are often treated as separate specialties from "landscape photography"—though often connected closely with, even overlapping, "landscape photography," and largely using the same techniques.

However, the dominant use of the term "landscape photography" generally is in reference to photography of naturally occurring scenery in open spaces—typically ranging from a dozen feet, to a dozen meters, to a dozen miles, in breadth.

Further, landscape photography is typically of relatively stationary subjects—arguably a form of "still life." This tends to simplify the task, as opposed to photography of kinetic or live subjects. However, "landscape photography" often overlaps the activity of "wildlife photography", and the two terms are used somewhat interchangeably, as both wildlife and landscapes may be elements of the same picture, or body of work.

Landscape photography typically requires relatively simple photographic equipment, though more sophisticated equipment can give a wider range of possibilities to the art. An artist's eye for the subject can yield attractive and impressive results even with modest equipment.

Any ordinary (or sophisticated) camera -- film camera or digital camera—can be readily used for common landscape photography. Higher-resolution and larger-format digital cameras (or larger-format film cameras) permit a greater amount of detail and a wider range of artistic presentation.

However, a larger-format camera yields a more limited depth of field (range of the scene that is in focus) for a given aperture value, requiring greater care in focusing

A camera with "panorama" function or frame can permit very wide images suitable for capturing a panoramic view.

For "wide open spaces," a wide-angle lens is generally the preferred lens, allowing a broad angle of view. However, medium-range totele photo lenses can achieve satisfying imagery, as well, and can enable the capture of detailed scenery of smaller areas at greater distances. Telephoto lenses can also facilitate limited ranges of focus, to enable the photographer to emphasize a specific area, at a fairly specific distance, in sharp focus, with the foreground and background blurred (see: depth of field). A big difference between a wide-angles lens and a telephoto lens is the compression of the landscape; the wider the angle the more distance will appear between the foreground and background elements; however, a telephoto lens will make the same elements appear closer to each other. Other lenses that can help include the fisheye lens for extremely wide angles and dramatic effect, and the macro lens for extreme close-up work. While variable-range zoom lenses are widely used, some landscape photographers prefer fixed-range prime lenses to provide higher clarity and quality in the image.
Lenses are critically important to the quality of your images because, among other things, they focus the light that's recorded by the imaging sensor. Some lenses do this better that others. We believe that it's more important to buy the best lenses you can afford instead of the most expensive camera. Quality lenses excel at focusing light, so images are sharper, provide good contrast, and deliver accurate colors. They are the main source for a pictures quality and creativity standard.

The sensitivity to light, of the medium—the film or the digital camera sensor—is important in landscape photography, especially where great detail is required. In bright daylight, a "slow film" (low-ISO film), or low-ISO digital camera sensor sensitivity setting (typically ISO 100, or perhaps 200), is generally preferred, allowing maximum precision and evenness of image.

However, if there is movement in the scene, and the scene is in lower light—as with cloudy days, twilight, night, or in shaded areas—a higher ISO (up to the limits of the film or camera, depending upon the shortage of light) may be desirable, to ensure that fast shutter speeds can be used to "freeze" the motion.

Normally, landscape photography—being focused primarily on natural beauty—tends to be done with only naturally-occurring ambient light.

In some cases, however, artificial light is recommended or unavoidable. Careful use of flash, continuous artificial lighting or reflective surfaces (e.g.: reflectors) for "fill" in shadowy areas is often used in close-up landscape photography.

However, given the broad expanses of open space that tend to dominate in landscape photography, artificial lighting is typically ineffective, or even destructive (causing the foreground to be wildly over-lit, and the background to become overly dark).

Light at dawn or dusk, or just before or after those times (especially at sunrise, or during the "golden hour" just before sunset), is often considered the best for capturing detail, showing scenes in the best colors of light, or otherwise generating impressive and attractive images.

With cameras that allow a variety of shutter speeds and lens apertures, landscape photographers tend to prefer settings that allow all of the viewed area to be in sharp focus. This typically requires a small aperture (a high f-stop), which creates only a small hole for the light to come into the camera from the lens, ensuring that as much of the field of view is in focus as possible.

With a small aperture, however, a slower shutter speed (longer exposure) may be required to compensate for the limited amount of light squeezing in through the small aperture. This can be a problem if there are kinetic elements in the picture, such as moving animals (especially birds), people or vehicles. It can also be a problem if the environment is kinetic (in motion), such as wind blowing and shaking all the trees and plants in the scene, or if water is flowing. Slow shutter speeds can also be a problem if the photographer is in motion.

Consequently, some compromise between shutter speed and aperture may be necessary, or advisable. To some extent, a higher-ISO film or digital camera setting can compensate without the need to alter shutter speed or aperture. However, higher ISO settings ("fast film") can result in grainy pictures and poor capture of details, especially at a distance.

In some cases, a slow shutter speed is desired to show movement of the subjects, particularly moving water or the effects of wind.

Filters can serve a wide range of purposes in landscape photography.

For instance, a polarizing filter can darken the sky, while allowing surface features to be shown in relatively sharper clarity. Polarizing filters also help with cutting glare from water, snow and ice—even facilitating greater transparency of water and ice.

Neutral density filters are darkened with a neutral (colorless) gray tint which reduces the amount of light entering the camera lens. These filters are used to lengthen shutter speeds without the need to alter aperture or film/sensor sensitivity, or alternatively, to use large apertures without exceeding the maximum shutter speed of a camera. A variation of this filter, termed the graduated neutral density filter or simply 'ND grad', transitions from dark, neutral gray on one side to clear on the opposite side. Photographers use these filters to lower natural contrasts by reducing light transmission from the brightest portion of the subject landscape, while letting light from the darker portion of the landscape enter the lens unobstructed.

UV-Zero haze filters reduce "purple fringing" caused by ultraviolet light, especially in digital situations. They are also recommended by some professional photographers as protection for the vulnerable lens, especially when outdoors or in dynamic situations.

Color filters can create other effects, or compensate for the appearance of unnatural lighting due to camera characteristics.

A firm footing for the camera is important to ensure crisp, detailed images. Experts advise placing the camera on a firm surface—unaffected by any vibration, wind or human contact—and setting a timer, or using a remote control or cable release, to trip the shutter. A tripod is especially helpful for stabilizing the camera, and is widely regarded as essential equipment for landscape photography.

Some modern, high-quality cameras also provide image stabilization, which compensates for vibration by moving inner workings of the camera, or electronically correcting the photograph.

Because landscape photography is normally outdoors photography, protection from the elements can be helpful. Shooting from inside a sheltering structure or stationary vehicle (engine off, occupants stationary) can be helpful. Use of an umbrella or other shield to keep camera and photographer dry can also be helpful. A waterproof container for the camera, with drying agent inside (e.g.: dry cloth) may be advised, and experts advise that the camera should be shielded from blowing dust, snow, and rain, and extremely harsh direct sunlight.

In wild areas, where the possibility of encountering dangerous aspects of nature is concerned (e.g.: climbing mountains, fording rivers and streams, walking through predator-infested forests, jungles and other wilderness, crocodile/alligator-infested swamps, snake-infested woods and deserts, and so on, and personal exposure to the elements) -- in places often far-removed from clean water, food and emergency services—normal precautions for personal health and safety are also advised.

Source: Wikipedia

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All About Fashion Photography

Fashion Photography

Fashion photography is a genre of photography devoted to displaying clothing and other fashion items. Fashion photography is most often conducted for advertisements or fashion magazines such as Vogue, Vanity Fair, or Elle. Over time, fashion photography has developed its own aesthetic in which the clothes and fashions are enhanced by the presence of exotic locations or accessories.

Fashion photography has been in existence since the earliest days of photography. In 1856, Adolphe Braun published a book containing 288 photographs of Virginia Oldoini, Countess di Castiglione, a Tuscan noble woman at the court of Napoleon III. The photos depict her in her official court garb, making her the first fashion model.

In the first decade of the 20th century, advances in halftone printing allowed fashion photographs to be featured in magazines. Fashion photography made its first appearance in French magazines such as La mode practique. In 1909, Condé Nast took over Vogue magazine and also contributed to the beginnings of fashion photography. In 1911, photographer Edward Steichen was "dared" by Lucien Vogel, the publisher of Jardin des Modes and La Gazette du Bon Ton, to promote fashion as a fine art by the use of photography. Steichen then took photos of gowns designed by couturier Paul Poiret. These photographs were published in the April 1911 issue of the magazine Art et Decoration.  According to Jesse Alexander, This is "...now considered to be the first ever modern fashion photography shoot. That is, photographing the garments in such a way as to convey a sense of their physical quality as well as their formal appearance, as opposed to simply illustrating the object."

Vogue was followed by its rival, Harper's Bazaar, and the two companies were leaders in the field of fashion photography throughout the 1920s and 1930s. House photographers such as Edward Steichen, George Hoyningen-Huene, Horst P. Horst and Cecil Beaton Transformed the genre into an outstanding art form.

In the mid-1930s as World War II approached, the focus shifted to the United States, where 

Vogue and Harper's continued their old rivalry. In 1936, Martin Munkacsi made the first photographs of models in sporty poses at the beach. Under the artistic direction of Alexey Brodovitch, Harper's Bazaar quickly introduced this new style into its magazine.
House photographers such as Irving Penn,Martin Munkacsi, Richard Avedon, and Louise Dahl-Wolfe would shape the look of fashion photography for the following decades. Richard Avedon revolutionized fashion photography — and redefined the role of the fashion photographer — in the post-World War II era with his imaginative images of the modern woman.

From 1939 and onward, what had previously been the flourishing and sizeable industry of fashion photography all but stopped due to the beginnings of World War II. The United States and Europe quickly diverged from one another. What had previously been a togetherness and inspired working relationship divulged as Paris was occupied and London under siege. Paris, the main fashion-power house of the time quickly became isolated from the United States—especially with French Vogue shutting down for a brief hiatus in 1940. With these changes, the photography based out of the USA gained a distinct Americana vibe—models often posed with flags, American brand cars, and generally just fulfilling the American ideal. What did remain of the French and British fashion photography on the other hand often had a wartime overlay to the content. Cecil Beaton’s ‘Fashion is Indestructible’ from 1945 displays a well-dressed woman viewing the rubble that once was Middle Temple in London. Similarly, Lee Miller began taking photos of women in Paris and London, modeling the latest designs for gas masks and bicycling with pink curlers in their hair, as they did not have electricity with which to curl their hair. Images such as these remain scarred into the face of fashion photography of the time and display a common sentiment among the fashionable world and the public. Even fashion photographers worked to document the issues surrounding and work towards a documentation of the time—even if within the frame of fashion. These photos are an especially good indication of the fashionable emotions of the time. Many felt that fashion photography, during wartime especially, was frivolous and unnecessary. Yet, the few who worked to preserve the industry did so in new and inventive ways throughout the duration of the war.

In postwar London, John French pioneered a new form of fashion photography suited to reproduction in newsprint, involving natural light and low contrast.

Source: Wikipedia

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All About Documentary Photography

Documentary Photography 

Documentary photography usually refers to a popular form of photography used to chronicle events or environments both significant and relevant to history and historical events and everyday life. It is typically covered in professional photojournalism, or real life reportage, but it may also be an amateur, artistic, or academic pursuit.

The term document applied to photography antedates the mode or genre itself. Photographs meant to accurately describe otherwise unknown, hidden, forbidden, or difficult-to-access places or circumstances. The earliest daguerreotype and calotype "surveys" of the ruins of the Near East, Egypt, and the American wilderness areas. Nineteenth-century archaeologist John Beasly Greene, for example, traveled to Nubia in the early 1850s to photograph the major ruins of the region; One early documentation project was the French Missions Heliographiques organized by the official Commission des Monuments historiques to develop an archive of France's rapidly disappearing architectural and human heritage; the project included such photographic luminaries as Henri Le Secq,Edouard Denis Baldus, and Gustave Le Gray.

In the United States, photographs tracing the progress of the American Civil War (1861-1865) by photographers for at least three consortia of photographic publisher-distributors, most notably Mathew Brady andAlexander Gardner, resulted in a major archive of photographs ranging from dry records of battle sites to harrowing images of the dead by Timothy O'Sullivan and evocative images by George N. Barnard. A huge body of photography of the vast regions of the Great West was produced by official government photographers for the Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories (a predecessor of the USGS), during the period 1868–1878, including most notably the photographers Timothy O'Sullivan and William Henry Jackson.

Both the Civil War and USGS photographic works point up an important feature of documentary photography: the production of an archive of historical significance, and the distribution to a wide audience through publication. The US Government published Survey photographs in the annual Reports, as well as portfolios designed to encourage continued funding of scientific surveys.

The development of new reproduction methods for photography provided impetus for the next era of documentary photography, in the late 1880s and 1890s, and reaching into the early decades of the 20th century. This period decisively shifted documentary from antiquarian and landscape subjects to that of the city and its crises. The refining of photo gravure methods, and then the introduction of halftone reproduction around 1890 made low cost mass-reproduction in newspapers, magazines and books possible. The figure most directly associated with the birth of this new form of documentary is the journalist and urban social reformer Jacob Riis. Riis was a New York police-beat reporter who had been converted to urban social reform ideas by his contact with medical and public-health officials, some of whom were amateur photographers. Riis used these acquaintances at first to gather photographs, but eventually took up the camera himself. His books, most notably How the Other Half Lives of 1890 and The Children of the Slums of 1892, used those photographs, but increasingly he also employed visual materials from a wide variety of sources, including police "mug shots" and photojournalistic images.

Riis's documentary photography was passionately devoted to changing the inhumane conditions under which the poor lived in the rapidly expanding urban-industrial centers. His work succeeded in embedding photography in urban reform movements, notably the Social Gospel and Progressivemovements. His most famous successor was the photographer Lewis Wickes Hine, whose systematic surveys of conditions of child-labor in particular, made for the National Child Labor Commission and published in sociological journals like The Survey, are generally credited with strongly influencing the development of child-labor laws in New York and the United States more generally.

In 1900, Englishwoman Alice Seeley Harristraveled to the Congo Free State with her husband, John Hobbis Harris (a missionary). There she photographed Belgian atrocities against local people with an early Kodak Brownie camera. The images were widely distributed through magic lantern screenings and were critical in changing public perceptions of slavery and eventually forcingLeopold II of Belgium to cede control of the territory to the Belgian government, creating the Belgian Congo.

In the 1930s, the Great Depression brought a new wave of documentary, both of rural and urban conditions. The Farm Security Administration, a common term for the Historical Division, supervised by Roy Stryker, funded legendary photographic documentarians, including Walker Evans,Dorothea Lange, Russell Lee, John Vachon, and Marion Post Wolcott among others. This generation of documentary photographers is generally credited for codifying the documentary code of accuracy mixed with impassioned advocacy, with the goal of arousing public commitment to social change.

During the wartime and postwar eras, documentary photography increasingly became subsumed under the rubric of photo journalism. Swiss-American photographer Robert Frank is generally credited with developing a counterstrain of more personal, evocative, and complex documentary, exemplified by his work in the 1950s, published in the United States in his 1959 book, The Americans. In the early 1960s, his influence on photographers like Garry Winogrand and Lee Friedlander resulted in an important exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), which brought those two photographers together with their colleagueDiane Arbus under the title, New Documents. MoMA curator John Szarkowski proposed in that exhibition that a new generation, committed not to social change but to formal and iconographical investigation of the social experience of modernity, had replaced the older forms of social documentary photography.

In the 1970s and 1980s, a spirited attack on traditional documentary was mounted by historians, critics, and photographers. One of the most notable was the photographer-criticAllan Sekula, whose ideas and the accompanying bodies of pictures he produced, influenced a generation of "new new documentary" photographers, whose work was philosophically more rigorous, often more stridently leftist in its politics. Sekula emerged as a champion of these photographers, in critical writing and editorial work. Notable among this generation are the photographers Fred Lonidier, whose 'Health and Safety Game" of 1976 became a model of post-documentary, and Martha Rosler, whose "The Bowery in Two Inadequate Descriptive Systems" of 1974-75 served as a milestone in the critique of classical humanistic documentary as the work of privileged elites imposing their visions and values on the dis-empowered.

Since the late 1990s, an increased interest in documentary photography and its longer term perspective can be observed. Nicholas Nixonextensively documented issues surrounded by American life. South African documentary photographer Pieter Hugo engaged in documenting art traditions with a focus on African communities. Antonin Kratochvilphotographed a wide variety of subjects, including Mongolia's street children for the Museum of Natural History. Fazal Sheikhsought to reflect the realities of the most underprivileged peoples of different third world countries.

Documentary photography generally relates to longer term projects with a more complex story line, while photojournalism concerns more breaking news stories. The two approaches often overlap.

Since the late 1970s, the decline of magazine published photography meant traditional forums for such work were vanishing. Many documentary photographers have now focused on the art world and galleries of a way of presenting their work and making a living. Traditional documentary photography has found a place in dedicated photography galleries alongside other artists working in painting, sculpture and modern media.

Source: wikipedia

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All About Abstract Photography

Abstract Photography

Abstract photography is my personal favourite kind of photography. I have always been fascinated by the creativity involved in each abstract photograph. it gives a whole new meaning and lets you see the world from a different PERSPECTIVE. 

Abstract photography, sometimes called non-objective, experimental, conceptual or concrete photography, is a means of depicting a visual image that does not have an immediate association with the object world and that has been created through the use of photographic equipment, processes or materials. An abstract photograph may isolate a fragment of a natural scene in order to remove its inherent context from the viewer, it may be purposely staged to create a seemingly unreal appearance from real objects, or it may involve the use of color, light, shadow, texture, shape and/or form to convey a feeling, sensation or impression. The image may be produced using traditional photographic equipment like a camera, darkroom or computer, or it may be created without using a camera by directly manipulating film, paper or other photographic media, including digital presentations.

There has been no commonly-used definition of the term "abstract photography". Books and articles on the subject include everything from a completely representational image of an abstract subject matter, such as Aaron Siskind's photographs of peeling paint, to entirely non-representational imagery created without a camera or film, such as Marco Breuer's fabricated prints and books. The term is both inclusive of a wide range of visual representations and explicit in its categorization of a type of photography that is visibly ambiguous by its very nature.

Many photographers, critics, art historians and others have written or spoken about abstract photography without attempting to formalize a specific meaning. Alvin Langdon Coburn in 1916 proposed that an exhibition be organized with the title "Abstract Photography", for which the entry form would clearly state that "no work will be admitted in which the interest of the subject matter is greater than the appreciation of the extraordinary." The proposed exhibition did not happen, yet Coburn later created some distinctly abstract photographs.

Photographer and Professor of Psychology John Suler, in his essay Photographic Psychology: Image and Psyche, said that "An abstract photograph draws away from that which is realistic or literal. It draws away from natural appearances and recognizable subjects in the actual world. Some people even say it departs from true meaning, existence, and reality itself. It stands apart from the concrete whole with its purpose instead depending on conceptual meaning and intrinsic form....Here’s the acid test: If you look at a photo and there’s a voice inside you that says 'What is it?'….Well, there you go. It’s an abstract photograph."

Barbara Kasten, also a photographer and professor, wrote that "Abstract photography challenges our popular view of photography as an objective image of reality by reasserting its constructed nature....Freed from its duty to represent, abstract photography continues to be a catchall genre for the blending of mediums and disciplines. It is an arena to test photography."

German photographer and photographic theorist Gottfried Jäger used the term "concrete photography", playing off the term "concrete art", to describe a particular kind of abstract photography. He said:

"Concrete photography does not depict the visible (like realistic or documentary photography);It does not represent the non-visible (like staged, depictive photography);It does not take recourse to views (like image-analytical, conceptual, demonstrative photography).Instead it establishes visibility. It is only visible, the only-visible.In this way it abandons its media character and gains object character."

More recently conceptual artist Mel Bochnerhand wrote a quote from the Encyclopedia Britannia that said "Photography cannot record abstract ideas." on a note card, then photographed it and printed it using six different photographic processes. He turned the words, the concept and the visualization of the concept into art itself, and in doing so created a work that presented yet another type of abstract photography, again without ever defining the term itself.

Some of the earliest images of what may be called abstract photography appeared within the first decade after the invention of the craft. In 1842 John William Draper created images with a spectroscope, which dispersed light rays into a then previously unrecorded visible pattern. The prints he made had no reference to the reality of the visible world that other photographers then recorded, and they demonstrated photography's unprecedented ability to transform what had previously been invisible into a tangible presence. Draper saw his images as science records rather than art, but their artistic quality is appreciated today for their groundbreaking status and their intrinsic individuality.

Another early photographer, Anna Atkins in England, produced a self-published book ofphotograms made by placing dried algaedirectly on cyanotype paper. Intended as a scientific study, the stark white on blue images have an ethereal abstract quality due to the negative imaging and lack of natural context for the plants.

The discovery of the X-ray in 1895 andradioactivity in 1896 caused a great public fascination with things that were previously invisible or unseen. In response, photographers began to explore how they could capture what could not been seen by normal human vision.

About this same time Swedish author and artist August Strindberg experimented with subjecting saline solutions on photographic plates to heat and cold. The images he produced with these experiments were indefinite renderings of what could not otherwise be seen and were thoroughly abstract in their presentation.

Near the turn of the century Louis Darget in France tried to capture images of mental processes by pressing unexposed plates to the foreheads of sitters and urging them to project images from their minds onto the plates. The photographs he produced were blurry and indefinite, yet Darget was convinced that what he called "thought vibrations" were indistinguishable from light rays.

During the first decade of the 20th century there was a wave of artistic exploration that hastened the transition in painting and sculpture from Impressionism and Post-Impressionism  to Cubism and Futurism. Beginning in 1903 a series of annual art exhibitions in Paris called the Salon d'Automne introduced the public to then radical vision of artists like Cézanne, Picasso,Marcel Duchamp, Francis Picabia, František Kupka, and Albert Gleizes. Jean Metzinger. A decade later the Armory Show in New York created a scandal by showing completely abstract works by Kandinsky, Braque,Duchamp, Robert Delaunay and others.

The public's interest in and sometimes repulsion to abstract art was duly noted by some of the more creative photographers of the period. By 1910, in New York Alfred Stieglitz began to show abstract painters likeMarsden Hartley and Arthur Dove at his 291 art gallery, which had previously exhibited onlypictorial photography. Photographers like Stieglitz, Paul Strand and Edward Steichen all experimented with depictive subjects photographed in abstract compositions.

The first publicly exhibited images that are now recognized as abstract photographs were a series called Symmetrical Patterns from Natural Forms, shown by Erwin Quedenfeldt in Cologne in 1914. Two years later Alvin Langdon Coburn began experimenting with a series he calledVortographs. During one six-week period in 1917 he took about two dozen photographs with a camera outfitted with a multi-faceted prism. The resulting images were purposely unrelated to the realities he saw and to his previous portraits and cityscapes. He wrote "Why should not the camera throw off the shackles of contemporary representations…? Why, I ask you earnestly, need we go on making commonplace little exposures…?"

In the 1920s and 1930s there was a significant increase in the number of photographers who explored abstract imagery. In Europe, Prague became a center of avant-garde photography, with František Drtikol, Jaroslav Rössler, Josef Sudek andJaromír Funke all creating photographs influenced by Cubism and Futurism. Rössler's images in particular went beyond representational abstraction to pure abstractions of light and shadow.

In Germany and later in the U.S. László Moholy-Nagy, a leader of the Bauhaus school of modernism, experimented with the abstract qualities of the photogram. He said that "the most astonishing possibilities remain to be discovered in the raw material of photograph" and that photographers "must learn to seek, not the 'picture,' not the esthetic of tradition, but the ideal instrument of expression, the self-sufficient vehicle for education."

Some photographers during this time also pushed the boundaries of conventional imagery by incorporating the visions ofsurrealism or futurism into their work. Man Ray, Maurice Tabard, André Kertész, Curtis Moffat and Filippo Masoero were some of the best known artists who produced startling imagery that questioned both reality and perspective.

Both during and after World War IIphotographers such as Minor White, Aaron Siskind, Henry Holmes Smith and Lotte Jacobiexplored compositions of found objects in ways that demonstrated even our natural world has elements of abstraction embedded in it.

Frederick Sommer broke new ground in 1950 by photographing purposely rearranged found objects, resulting in ambiguous images that could be widely interpreted. He chose to title one particular enigmatic image The Sacred Wood, after T.S. Eliot's essay on criticism and meaning.

The 1960s were marked uninhibited explorations in to the limits of photographic media at the time,starting with photographers who assembled or re-assembled their own and/or found images, such as Ray K. Metzker,Robert Heinecken and Walter Chappell.

Beginning in the late 1970s photographers stretched the limits of both scale and surface in what was then traditional photographic media that had to be developed in a darkroom. Inspired by the work of Moholy-Nagy, Susan Rankaitis first began embedding found images from scientific textbooks into large-scale photograms, creating has been called "a palimpsest that has to be explored almost like an archeological excavation." Later she produced enormous interactive gallery constructions that expanded the physical and conceptual notions of what a photograph might be. Her work was said to "mimic the fragmentation of the contemporary mind."

By the 1990s a new wave of photographers were exploring the possibilities of using computers to create new ways of creating photographs. Photographers such as Thomas Ruff, Barbara Kasten, Tom Friedman, andCarel Balth were creating works that combined photography, sculpture, printmaking and computer-generate images.

Once computers and photography software became widely available, the boundaries of abstract photography were expanded beyond the limits of film and chemistry into almost limitless dimensions. Any boundaries that remained between pure artists and pure photographers were eliminated by individual who worked exclusively in photography but produced only computer-generated images. Among the most well-known of the early 21st century generation were Penelope Umbrico,Ellen Carey, Nicki Stager, Shirine Gill,Wolfgang Tillmans and Adam Broomberg & Oliver Chanarin.

source: Wikipeida

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One Of The a best Female Photographers

In this blog, I thought of concentrating on the amazing female talent. She is possibly the most definitive photographers to have ever lived and she is famous for her black and white portraits.
Sally Mann is an American photographer, best known for her large black-and-white photographs—at first of her young children, then later of landscapes suggesting decay and death.

Born in Lexington, Virginia, Mann was the third of three children and the only daughter. Her father, Robert S. Munger, was a general practitioner, and her mother, Elizabeth Evans Munger, ran the bookstore at Washington and Lee University in Lexington. Mann was raised by an atheist and compassionate father who allowed Mann to be "benignly neglected."Mann graduated from The Putney School in 1969, and attended Bennington College and Friends World College. She earned a B.A., summa cum laude, from Hollins College (now Hollins University) in 1974 and a MA in creative writing in 1975. She took up photography at Putney, where, she claims, her motive was to be alone in the darkroom with her boyfriend.She made her photographic debut at Putney, with an image of a nude classmate. Her father encouraged her interest in photography; his 5x7 camera became the basis of her use of large format cameras today. She has "never" read about photography.

After graduation, Mann worked as a photographer at Washington and Lee University. In the mid-1970s she photographed the construction of its new law school building, the Lewis Hall (now the Sydney Lewis Hall), leading to her first one-woman exhibition in late 1977 at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. Those surrealistic images were subsequently included as part of her first book, Second Sight, published in 1984. While Mann explored a variety of genres as she was maturing in the 1970s, she truly found her trade with her second publication, At Twelve: Portraits of Young Women (Aperture, 1988).

Her second collection, At Twelve: Portraits of Young Women, published in 1988, stimulated minor controversy. The images “captured the confusing emotions and developing identities of adolescent girls [and the] expressive printing style lent a dramatic and brooding mood to all of her images.”In the preface to the book, Ann Beattie says “when a girl is twelve years old, she often wants – or says she wants – less involvement with adults. […] [it is] a time in which the girls yearn for freedom and adults feel their own grip on things becoming a little tenuous, as they realize that they have to let their children go.” Beattie says that Mann’s photographs don’t “glamorize the world, but they don’t make it into something more unpleasant than it is, either.” The girls photographed in this series are shown “vulnerable in their youthfulness” but Mann instead focuses on the strength that the girls possess.

In an image from the book, Mann says that the young girl was extremely reluctant to stand closer to her mother’s boyfriend. Mann said that she thought it was strange because “it was their peculiar familiarity that had provoked this photograph in the first place.” Mann didn’t want to crop out the girl’s elbow but the girl refused to move in closer. According to Mann, the girl’s mother shot her boyfriend in the face with a .22 several months later. In court the mother “testified that while she worked nights at a local truck stop he was ‘at home partying and harassing my daughter.’ Mann said “the child put it to me somewhat more directly.” Mann says that she now looks at this photograph with “a jaggy chill of realization.”

Many of her other photographs containing her nude or hurt children caused controversy. For example, in "The Perfect Tomato," (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/83/%22The_Perfect_Tomato%22_by_Sally_Mann_%281990%29_%28correct_image%29.jpg)  the viewer sees a nude Jessie, posing on a picnic table outside, bathed in light. Jessie told Steven Cantor during the filming of one of his movies that she had just been playing around and her mother told her to freeze, and she tried to capture the image in a rush because the sun was setting. This explains why everything is blurred except for the tomato, hence the photograph's title. This image was likely criticized for Jessie’s nudity and presentation of the adolescent female form. While Jessie was aware of this  photograph, Dana Cox, in her essay, said that the Mann children were probably unaware of the other photographs being taken as Mann’s children were often naked because “it came natural to them.”This habit of nudity is a family thing because Mann says she used to walk around her house naked when she was growing up. Cox states that “the own artist’s childhood is reflected in the way she captures moments in her children’s lives.” One image that deals more with another aspect of childhood besides "naked play", Jessie's Cut, shows Jessie's head, wrapped in what appears to be plastic, with blood running down the side of her face from the cut above her left eye. The cut is stitched and the blood is dry and stains her skin. As painful as the image looks, there are a great number of viewers who could relate to Jessie when they think about the broken bones and stitched up cuts they had during childhood.

When Time magazine named her “America’s Best Photographer” in 2001, it wrote:

"Mann recorded a combination of spontaneous and carefully arranged moments of childhood repose and revealingly — sometimes unnervingly — imaginative play. What the outraged critics of her child nudes failed to grant was the patent devotion involved throughout the project and the delighted complicity of her son and daughters in so many of the solemn or playful events. No other collection of family photographs is remotely like it, in both its naked candor and the fervor of its maternal curiosity and care."

Mann received an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree from the Corcoran Museum in May 2006. The Royal Photographic Society (UK) awarded her an Honorary Fellowship in 2012.

Mann won the 2016 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction for Hold Still: A Memoir in Photographs.

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