Bluffing your way through Photography
Created | Updated Feb 10, 2004
Photography
Lets start at the very beginning. 'Photo' 'Graphy' means literaly 'Light' 'Writing' and it is therefore self explanitory that all things to do with photography are to do with light.
How does a camera work?
Imagine a square room with no windows. I now drill a small hole through one of the walls. An image will now be projected, from this little hole onto the wall opposite, of everything that is outside. It is in essence a very large pinhole camera. Imagine if you will that now an exceedingly large person stands against the wall where the image is being projected. Where a light part of the picture falls (a white cloud say) the skin of our subject will tan and go dark, where shadow falls (a dark dorway perhaps) the skin will remain light. Once the subject has been suitably tanned a negative image will have been burnt into his skin. This is how a camera works, almost. The room is the camera body, the drilled hole is the lense and the sun-sensitive-skin is the film in the camera. It is as easy as that.
If we now have a look at our somewhat scoulded suject you will see that the image on his skin is a negative of the true picture of what is out side. This is the same as photographic film and is the reason that they are called negatives (And, just to quench your curiosity, yes there are such things as positives).
What makes a good picture?
This is the million dollar question. And there are 2 real answers to it. The first is this: As art is completely subjective (Dependent upon the veiws and opinions of others) no picture can be said to be proclaimed good or bad. Instead each person that sees has a differnet opinion, for some it may be the best picture ever and for some the worst. So to answer the question 'What makes a good picture?' it would be that a good picture is one that the observer enjoys.
Simple Cameras
To stand the best chance of passing off as a photographer it is best to use a fully automatic camera. These cameras are very forgiving if you make mistakes and if you can get one that wil take Advantex film, even better because that means hat you don't have to worry about taking the films in and out.
However, this methord will only work if you are showing peolpe your photographs as if they se you with you camera struyggleing to find the button that takes the photo, you will be skupperd.
Digital Cameras
SLR Cameras
What camera do I get?
Photography Lingo
SLR - Single Lense Reflex. These are cameras that have a prism inside. Normally the prism is down allowing the image that comes through the lense to be reflected up to the view finder. When a picture is taken the prism flips out of the way allowing the light to pass it and fall onto the film at the back of the camera.
Advantex - Camera film for dummies... and people tat don't want to have to fiddle about with 35mm
35mm - Normal camera film. You sometimes have to wind this into the camera itself though mordern cameras often do it thenselves
Composition - The way in which things are arranged in a picture.