"Taking a photo" or "Making a photo"

What is the difference? Taking a photo or photos isn't pre-planned. It is usually spur of the moment. You see something or someone and you point the camera and take the photo. I would say most people "take" photos. There is little thought given to it. They can still be good photos but they have little control over the elements of the photo. The lighting could be bad or they don't have enough time to compose the image they want. To "make" a photo a photographer has to think ahead of time about how they want to image to look. They consider the subject, the lighting, the location, etc.. I would say 99% of photos are taken. Not that it is a bad thing. Some of the best photos can be spontaneous. Photo journalists have to depend on capturing "the moment" and they get paid handsomely for it. It does take a knack though to create good "spontaneous" photos. The people that "make" photos can spend hours, days or even weeks preparing for a shoot. For me it can be very difficut to "make" a good photo. I remember once having to do an assignment and nothing came to mind. Fortunately a friend came up with a suggestion and it turned out well.

Applied Photographic Science

Here is some of what I was supposed to learn in my Applied Photographic Science class at Brooks Institute.


Exam 1

Convert inches to centimeters to millimeters and vice versa.

Understand the concept of “model” in science.

Explain and recognize examples of direct and inverse proportions.

Explain the difference between longitudinal and transverse waves.

Explain constructive and destructive interference.

Know the names of the regions of the electromagnetic spectrum in the proper order and relate the energy to the position in the spectrum.

Explain beating, resonance, and interference and use the vocabulary of waves and vibrations properly.

Know the order of the colors of the visible spectrum and relate this to their frequency, wavelength, and energy.

Explain infrared film and predict the color shifts. Contrast the performance of film with that of sensors.

Understand the concept of “photon” and explain color, energy, frequency, and brightness in terms of photons.

Understand the cause of fluorescence and phosphorescence.

Recognize the spectral distribution of low pressure gases, high pressure gases, and solids.

Recognize how temperature and filtration affect the distribution of energy of a source. Interpret graphs of spectral distribution.

Use the concept of “energy level” to explain how atoms produce spectra. Be able to predict the spectra from the energy level diagram.

Relate “object color”, “perceived color”, and “illumination source”.

Contrast sound waves and light waves.

Predict the color shift of film with different sources.

Apply the inverse-square law to the calculation of illumination levels. Use the terms candle, foot-candle, lumen, lux.

Explain the fundamental principles of holograms.

Understand the concept of stimulated emission.

Explain the concepts “color temperature” and “black body”.

Explain the behavior of safelights as a photoelectric phenomenon.

Know the speed of light and relate the variables “speed”, “frequency”, and “wavelength” to each other.

Vocabulary: velocity, frequency, wave length, continuous spectrum, line spectrum, emission spectrum, absorption spectrum, interference, diffraction, hologram, Kelvin temperature, direct proportion, inverse proportion, quantum, inverse square, stimulated emission, photoelectric, phase angle, amplitude, resonance, beats, opaque, coherent light, color shift, intensity, illumination, foot-candle, candle, temperature, color temperature, black body, spectrum, spectra, constructive, destructive, radiation, graph slope

I got a B- in the class.

4x5

4x5 is the size of the film used in a 4x5 view camera. I was required to buy one when I attended Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara, California. I had never used a camera like this before. This is the old fashioned type camera where the photographer standing beneath a dark cloth to look through the ground glass. It is a very disconcerting because the image is upside down and that took some getting used to. The good things about the camera is that it produces a very large negative from which a very sharp print can be printed. Another thing is that the camera allows for correction of distortion when photographing buildings. The film is held in film holders which hold 2 sheets of film, one on each side. It is also very heavy and requires a sturdy tripod. Also to focus it is best to use a loupe for magnification. Also a shutter release cable is needed. Back then I also used a manual light meter. You have to remember this was back in 1981 when things were still done manually. I also had to learn to develop the film. I could develop my own black and white film while the color film was sent to the photo lab for processing. I developed a lot of film during my time at Brooks. I used a black and white film called Tri-X most of the time but I also shot color negative and color transparency. Sometime the assignment called for both black and white and color and color transparency. I haven't used the camera in a long time now but I still have and there are times when I think about bringing it out and taking a few photos. Maybe I will.

Special Effects

This is an example of the special effects that you can do in Photoshop (Solarization and Posterization).

My photography equipment

Since I am shooting digitally now I only use my Fuji S2 camera. The lens I normally use with it is a Nikon AF-S Nikkor 18-70 mm f 3.5-4.5G ED lens. I have a 2 Gb compact flash card. I have another Fuji S2 camera in case my primary camera stops working. On that camera I have a Nikkor 28-105 mm 3.5-4.5 D lens. The 18-70 is a DX lens and the 28-105 is not. I use White Lightning for my strobes and a Vivitar 283 flash with a Quantum Turbo battery pack. I still have my Nikon film cameras and Nikon lenses but I haven't used them in a long time.

Polly's Chapel, Bandera County, Texas

This is the chapel that my great-great-grandfather built. His name was Jose Policarpio Rodriguez and he lived from January 26, 1829 to March 25, 1914. He was a Hispanic Methodist minister.

Why I started a photography blog

I have been a photographer for a long time. It is my way of being creative. I started this blog to share with the others the joy I have in taking photos. I started taking photos when my brother who was in Hawaii while I was stationed at Pearl Harbor let me borrow his Nikon camera. I discovered that I could take good photos. Better than most people. I took a few classes and eventually attended Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara. In those days we still used film and had to process and print our own photos by developing the film and printing the photos using chemicals. Nowadays people just point and shoot and print out their digital photos with their home printer. Anyway, it is still about capturing an image. So here I am still taking photos but just doing it differently.