the photographic eye

straight-Stieglitz was among the firstphotographers to produce work that,even today, does not look "dated." Though clothing and architecturalstyles have changed considerablysince his tim

R E V I S E D E D I T I O N

THE PHOTOGRAPHIC EYE

Learning to See with a Camera

Michael F O'Brien & Norman Sibley

THE PHOTOGRAPHIC EYE

Learning to See with a Camera

Michael E O'Brien & Norman Sibley

Davis Publications, Inc., Worcester, Massachusetts

Copyright 1995Davis Publications, Inc.

Worcester, Massachusetts U.S.A

To the photography students ofSeoul American High School, past,present and future

No part of this work may be duced or transmitted in any form or

repro-by any means, electronic or ical, including photocopying and re-cording, or by any informationstorage or retrieval system withoutthe prior written permission of thecopyright owner, unless such copy-ing is expressly permitted by federalcopyright law Davis is not autho-rized to grant permission for furtheruses of copyrighted selections or im-ages reprinted in this text without thepermission of their owners Permis-sion must be obtained from the indi-vidual copyright owners as identifiedherein Address requests for permis-sion to make copies of Davis mate-rial to Permissions, Davis Publi-cations, Inc., 50 Portland Street,Worcester, MA 01608

mechan-Editor: Claire Mowbray GoldingDesign: Greta D SibleyPrinted in the United States ofAmerica

Library of Congress Catalog CardNumber: 93-74644

ISBN: 0-87192-283-5

1 0 9 8 7 6 5

Cover: Student photograph by Leah Gendler.

Student photograph by Gregory Conrad.

4 The Photographic Eye

7 Introduction

Part 1 Getting Started

11 Chapter 1 From Blurs to Big Business

History • Photographic Careers

Part 2 Elements of Composition

35 Chapter 2 Tools

Manual or Automatic? • The Camera, Inside & Out • Exercises: Testing the Shutter & Aperture

• Loading Film

51 Chapter 3 What is Composition?

Snapshots vs Photographs • Structure, Balance, Dynamics • Exercises: Mat Frame • Cropping

67 Chapter 4 Developing A Critical Eye

Critique Session • Evaluating a Print • Exercise: Sample Crit

83 Chapter 5 Point of Departure (f!6 at 1/125)

Starting Simply • Doing it Right

Controlling Exposure • Information & Mood • Using a Light Meter • Other Functions of Light

• Depth of Field * Exercise: Bracketing

Part 3 People, Places & Things: Exercises & Examples

197 Chapter 15 Putting It All Together

Exercises: Fairs • Open Markets • Rain • Playgrounds • Sports Events

209 Chapter 16 Breaking the Rules

Exercises: Night • Monotone • Silhouettes • Grain and Diffusion • Double Exposure • Photo-Copy Photos • Panel Panorama • Text and Image

Appendixes

227 Appendix 1 Processing

Processing Film • Printing • Manipulation

243 Appendix 2 Color

From B&W to Color • Technical Considerations

253 Appendix 3 Manipulation & Presentation

P hotography is both an art

and a science As an art, it

expresses a personal vision

As a science, it relies on technology

This double nature is not unique to

photography Every kind of creative

expression — s u c h as music, dance or

painting — h a s both a purely artistic

side and a more scientific or

tech-ological side as well For example,

paints are a kind of technology, and

using them well involves a

consid-rable amount of technical skill The

main difference between photogaphy

and more traditional visual arts, such

as painting, is the complexity of its

technology

In any of the arts, the first step

toward excellence is mastering

ique — learning to use a specific

tech-ology skillfully and effectively In

photography, this means that you

must learn to control the camera and

darkroom equipment, rather than

let-ting them control you

No artist, however creative, can

produce a masterpiece without a

sound basis in technique On the

other hand, no amount of technical

skill can make up for a lack of artistic

vision Both are essential The goal

of any artist is to use good technique

creatively

Simply speaking, a camera is a

machine that produces a

two-dimensional (flat) copy of a

three-dimensional scene The process bywhich this is done may seem likemagic (In fact, when cameras werefirst introduced, many people all over

the world thought that they were

magic.) Fundamentally, however,there's no magic in the camera It'sjust a box with a hole in it Yousupply the magic When you, thephotographer, use a camera creative-

ly, it changes from a simple,mechanical machine into an artist'stool Instead of making randomcopies of things, it begins to saysomething about them

Here are some of the technicalquestions a photographer mustanswer for every photograph: Howwill the lighting affect the clarity andmood of the photograph? How fastshould the shutter speed be? Howlarge a lens opening should be used?

What should be in focus? Whatbelongs in the frame, and whatdoesn't? What lens should be used?

All these factors influence eachother, and they all affect the finalphotograph A photograph is "suc-cessful"—in the technical sense —when these factors all work welltogether and are combined with cor-rect darkroom procedures When acreative composition is added, thephotograph becomes aestheticallysuccessfully as well

Eventually, you will learn how to

control each of these factors toachieve the effect you want But itwill take time As you may alreadyknow, it's often hard to keep all ofthem in mind every time you take apicture

Fortunately, it is possible to beginmore simply This book is designed

to help you do that It begins with abrief summary of photography'spast, present and future, including adiscussion of photography careers.This is followed by an introduction

to the camera itself Chapters 3 and

4 provide a set of guidelines for posing and evaluating photographs.Chapter 5 explains a simple way tostart producing correctly exposedphotographs As soon as you get thatbasic background behind you, youwill begin your first photographassignments Chapters 6 through 11deal with specific "elements" ofphotography At the end of thesechapters are exercises that will helpyou learn to recognize and use eachelement discussed

The remainder of the book is posed of additional exercises (withexamples) and an Appendix, cover-ing most of the technical information(including a section on color photog-raphy) Finally, there's a glossary toclarify any confusing terminologyand a bibliography to help you locatemore detailed information

com-7

part 1 Getting Started

Student photograph by Edward Maresh.

Dorothea Lange, Migrant Mother, Nipomo, California, 1936 Gelatin silver print Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

From Blurs to Big Business

chapter 1

S urprisingly few new art

forms have been invented in

I the course of recorded

his-tory Depending on how such terms

as "art" and "new" are defined, the

novel as a form of literature may

qualify, as may rock 'n' roll and

other kinds of electric and electronic

music More recent candidates

in-clude computer graphics and the

current wave of digital creations

known as multi-media

One form that certainly qualifies

is photography From its beginnings

as a technological curiosity, it has

grown into one of the most

impor-tant influences in our society and

culture Every day, we encounter

hundreds of images produced with

cameras and film We learn about

the latest fashion trends from

photo-graphs — and about the latest war or

famine We also learn about the

re-markable planet on which we live

and about the people with whom we

share it

HISTORY

There is no single correct answer to

the question of how and when

pho-tography began No one person can

be credited with inventing it

In-stead, it emerged through centuries

of tinkering

The first printed photographs were

rheain

made between 1816 and 1840 Thefirst recorded discovery that certainchemicals turned black when exposed

to light was made in 1725 The basicdesign of the cameras we use todayhas been in use since the 1500s TheChinese figured it out even longer agothan that — as early as the fourth cen-tury So, photography is between1,500 and 150 years old

Prelude

The first stage of photography's

evolution in Europe was the camera obscura, which is Latin for "dark chamber" (camera = chamber or room; obscura = dark) The camera

obscura was a room, or a small ing, with no windows One tiny hole,fitted with a lens, projected imagesfrom outside the room onto the farwall inside it

build-The image was upside down andnot generally very clear, but it wasgood enough to become a useful toolfor artists The projected image could

be traced, providing an accuratesketch, which might then be devel-oped into a painting Portable ver-sions of the camera obscura weredeveloped by the 1660s The cameraexisted, but photography hadn't evenbeen imagined yet

In 1725, a German professor ofanatomy, Johann Heinrich Schulze,attempted to produce a phosphores-

cent stone (one that would glow in thedark) He mixed powdered chalk into

a nitric acid solution and was prised to discover that the mixtureturned purple in sunlight After in-vestigating, he discovered that his ex-periment had been contaminated withsilver salt (silver chloride) and thatthis was causing the reaction to light.Schulze was curious enough aboutthis phenomenon to experiment with

sur-it He covered bottles of his mixturewith stencils so the light would

"print" letters onto it, but the letterswould disintegrate as soon as the mix-ture was disturbed Evidently, henever thought that his discoverymight have any practical application

Early Prints

In 1777, a Swedish chemist, CarlWilhelm Scheele, repeated Schulze'sexperiments He also discovered thatammonia would dissolve the silverchloride and leave the image intact.With this second discovery, the basicchemistry of photography (exposingsilver chloride to produce an imageand "fixing" it with ammonia) wasestablished, but —again —what itmight lead to was not recognized.Forty years later, the plot began tothicken A number of people begantrying to produce a photographicimage on paper In France, JosephNicephore Niepce developed an

Joseph Nicephore Niepce, world's first permanent camera image Courtesy Gernsheim Collection, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, The University of Texas at Austin.

emulsion (a light-sensitive varnish)

out of bitumen of Judea, a kind of

asphalt Instead of turning black, this

material is hardened by light So, to

produce an image, Niepce coated a

glass or pewter plate with his

emul-sion, exposed it to light and then

washed the plate with solvents The

solvents dissolved the unexposed (and

still soft) emulsion, producing a

print: the world's first permanent

camera image It was only some blurs

of light and d a r k , and the exposure

reportedly took eight hours, but it

was a real image

Meanwhile, a painter in Paris

named Louis Jacques Mande guerre was also trying to produce acamera image He got in touch withNiepce and the two worked together

Da-on the problem Niepce died, poorand discouraged, a few years later,but Daguerre continued (withNiepce's son Isadore as his newpartner)

Daguerre was convinced that silverwas the key to producing a better im-age than Niepce's asphalt prints In

1835, his conviction paid off Hediscovered that if a silver plate wereiodized (treated with iodine), exposedfirst to light and then to mercury

vapor, and finally "fixed" with a saltsolution, then a visible, permanentimage would result This discoveryformed the basis for the first photo-graphic process to be used outside of

a laboratory: the daguerreotype.

In England, William Henry FoxTalbot was also experimenting withcamera images By 1835 he too hadsucceeded in producing a number ofphotographs With his process, thefirst exposure produced a negativeimage on paper treated with silvercompounds The exposed paper wasthen placed over a second sheet oftreated paper and exposed to a bright

12 The Photographic Eye

light, producing a positive image on

the second sheet

Thus, Talbot's process —called a

calotype or talbotype — e n a b l e d

photographers to make multiple

copies of a single image This was not

possible with a daguerreotype, which

produced a positive image directly on

a metal plate Because the calotype's

image was transferred through a

paper negative, however, it was not

as clear as the daguerreotype

In 1851, another Englishman,

Frederick Scott Archer, introduced

the collodian wet-plate process,

which offered the best of both

worlds: a high-quality image and

multiple copies Talbot tried to claim

credit and licensing rights for this new

process as well In 1854, the courts

overruled him and followed Archer's

wishes by making the process freely

available to everyone

The collodian process, like the

daguerreotype, was difficult to use

First, a clean glass plate had to be

evenly coated with collodian (a

sub-stance similar to plastic and

contain-ing potassium iodide) While still

damp, the plate had to be dipped into

a silver nitrate solution, inserted into

the camera and exposed It was then

developed immediately, and finally

allowed to dry If the plate dried

before the process was complete, the

emulsion would harden and the

pho-tograph would be ruined It wasn't

easy, but it worked

Photography Goes Public

Photography, dominated by the

col-lodian and daguerreotype processes,

began to take off Cameras were set

up in studios and loaded onto carts

to photograph portraits, landscapes

and battles Tourists collected

inex-pensive prints of local attractions,

called cartes-de-visite, by the

thousands The stereoscopic camera(which produced a three-dimensionaleffect by combining two images) wasintroduced in 1849 By the 1860s, noparlor in America was consideredcomplete without a stereo viewer and

a stack of slides to entertain guests

Photography had more serioususes as well As early as the 1850s,books of photographs were publishedshowing the harsh conditions of life

in the streets, factories, mines andslums of England and the UnitedStates Lewis Mine, a sociologist,produced powerful photographs ofchildren who worked long hours in

Julia Margaret Cameron, Alfred

Tennyson with his sons Hallam

and Lionel, 1865-69 Albumen print, W/2 x 8>/4" (27 x 22 cm) Gift of David Bakalar, 1977 Courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

From Blurs to Big Business 13

Lewis Mine, Doffer Girl in New

England Mill, c 1910.

textile mills and other industries Hiswork helped to bring about new laws

to protect children's rights

At the start of the Civil War, a cessful portrait photographer namedMathew Brady asked President Lin-coln for permission to carry hiscameras onto the battlefields Per-mission was granted, and Brady andhis staff compiled a remarkablerecord of that tragic period ofAmerican history Like many of pho-tography's pioneers, he paid for theproject almost entirely by himself anddied penniless as a result

suc-In the 1880s, Eadweard Muybridgeinvented a device called a zooprax-iscope which produced a series of im-ages of a moving subject It is said

that he did so to settle a bet as towhether or not running horses liftedall four hooves off the ground at onetime By photographing a horse withhis device, he proved that they do Healso contributed tremendously to ourunderstanding of how animals (andhumans) move

These and other similar uses ofphotography often achieved a highdegree of aesthetic quality —a highdegree of art Their primary pur-poses, however, were practical: topromote social reform, record his-torical events and aid scientificinvestigations

14 The Photographic Eye

Mathew Brady, Magazine in

Battery Rodgers, 1863 Library of

Congress, Washington, D.C.

From Blurs to Big Business 15

Eadweard Muybridge, Attitudes of Animals in Motion, c 1881.

But Is It Art?

At the same time, another group of

photographers were dealing with the

purely aesthetic issue of how

photog-raphy relates to the traditional arts,

particularly painting Is photography

an art at all? If so, how should it be

used? What should "art

photog-raphy" look like? These same

ques-tions continue to provoke discussion

and argument even today

Photog-raphy is still defining itself

By the 1850s, two opposing

fac-tions of artist-photographers had

been established The Pictorialists,

led by Oscar Rejlander and Henry

Peach Robinson, believed that a

photograph should look as much like

a painting as possible Their idea of

what a painting should look like was

heavily influenced by the Romanticistpainters (such as Delacroix) The Pic-torialist photographers, like theRomanticist painters, believed that anartist should improve upon nature byusing it to express noble ideas Bothfavored elaborate illustrations ofscenes from ancient mythology

The other faction called themselvesNaturalists They were led by PeterHenry Emerson and George Davison

The Naturalists believed that aphotograph should capture nature'sown truth They preferred the Bar-bizon painters, who took their easelsout to the forests, fields and streams,and painted them directly The Nat-uralist photographers did the same

with their cameras, specializing inpeaceful scenes of country life Theywere also increasingly fond of usingsoft focus (blurred edges) in theirphotographs

Despite the differences betweenthem, both the Pictorialists and theNaturalists believed that a work ofart ought to express a "correct senti-ment" and that it ought to be decora-

t i v e — p r e t t y This is what most setthem apart from the "practical" pho-tographers, like Brady and Muy-bridge, whose work showed the hardedges of reality, w i t h all its flaws

16 The Photographic Eye

New Tools & Processes

In the late 1880s, flexible film

ap-peared for the first time, replacing

clumsy and heavy glass plates By the

1890s, George Eastman had

intro-duced the Kodak camera, the first

that was reasonably easy to use The

camera itself was simple: a box with

a lens, a cord to cock the shutter, a

button to release it and a crank to

wind the film What made this

camera special was that it came

loaded with enough film for 100

photographs When the film was

used up, the entire camera was

returned to the Eastman Kodak

Company The film was then

devel-oped and printed, and the camera

was reloaded and returned, ready for

another 100 photos Eastman'sslogan was "You press the button; we

do the rest." (The name "Kodak," cidentally, doesn't mean anything

in-Eastman selected it because he felt it

w o u l d be easy for people toremember.)

In 1925, Leica introduced its ature" camera, the first to use 35mmfilm Though not quite as simple touse as the earlier Kodak model, it wastechnically more sophisticated andquite a bit smaller As a result,amateur photography became an in-ternational passion

"mini-Other technical advances tinued to appear all t h e time Thefirst commercial color film, Auto-chrome, hit the market in 1907

con-Autochrome produced transparencies(slides) that could not be enlargedvery much without showing the grain

of the starch dyes used to create theimage It also took fifty times as long

to expose as black-and-white film.Then, in 1935, Kodak introducedKodachrome, an improved slide film,followed in 1941 by Kodacolor, formaking color prints The familyphotograph album, which had existedfor only 100 years, was now bothwidespread and increasingly in fullcolor

Peter Henry Emerson, Gunner Working Up to Fowl, c 1886.

FOCAL POINT: Alfred Stieglitz, 1864-1946

Alfred Stieglitz was in many ways the

first "modern" photographer

Though his early photographs were

carefully manipulated to imitate

paintings, he soon recognized that

photography was an art in its own

right —and deserved to be treated as

one He saw the need to free

photog-raphy from the conventions and

lim-itations of painting Consequently,

Stieglitz promoted what came to be

known as "straight" photography —

making prints with little or no

crop-ping, retouching or other alteration

He was a founding member and

leader of the "Photo Secession," a

group of photographers who were

determined to break away from

pho-tography's past and to chart its

future Stieglitz was editor and

publisher of the group's magazine,

Camera Work, the first publication

to deal seriously with photography as

an independent art form He

work-ed with Edward Steichen to establish

"Gallery 291" in New York City,

which exhibited contemporary

pho-tographs along with paintings by

Picasso, Matisse and Georgia

O'Keefe (whom Stieglitz later

married)

When photography was first

in-vented, it was a scientific novelty

Soon, it evolved into an excellent

record-keeping tool Photographers

could be hired to make a lasting

record of a person, place or event By

the late 1800s, photographers were

striving to elevate their craft into a

recognized art They did this by

im-itating the content and visual effects

of paintings Stieglitz'great

achieve-ment was to bring photography full

circle: he merged its artistic potential

with its ability to produce a factual

record He returned to the forward approach of the earlyphotographers, but he did so with theinsight and confidence of a trueartist

straight-Stieglitz was among the firstphotographers to produce work that,even today, does not look "dated."

Though clothing and architecturalstyles have changed considerablysince his time, his best work still looksthoroughly modern The main reasonfor this is that he used the camera as

we use it today —as a familiar tool forexploring reality

The attitudes and interests thatStieglitz brought to photography can

be traced to his upbringing He wasborn in Hoboken, New Jersey, theson of German immigrants He orig-inally intended to become a mechan-ical engineer While in Berlin study-ing for this purpose, he happened tosee a camera in a store window Hebought it and soon decided it wasmore interesting than engineering

Alfred Stieglitz, The Rag Picker, New York, 1895.

18 The Photographic Eye

Alfred Stieglitz, The 'Flat Iron', 1902.

Alfred Stieglitz, Sun Rays-Paula-Berlin, 1889.

When he returned to the U.S at the

age of 26, he was delighted to find

that photography was extremely

pop-ular But he was also dismayed by the

lack of publications and galleries

pro-moting it as an art For the next 56

years, he devoted himself to

correct-ing this situation Along the way, he

produced some of the finest

photo-graphs in history

FOCAL POINT: James Van Der Zee, 1886-1983

James Van Der Zee, Couple in Raccoon Coats, 1932 Courtesy Donna Van Der Zee.

20 The Photographic Eye

James Van Der Zee was unique in

many ways First and foremost, he

was perhaps the most accomplished

black photographer in history, and is

certainly the best known today His

record of Harlem in the 1920s is

un-surpassed, in both quantity and

quality But he was unique in other

ways as well

Stylistically, he employed both

stark realism and dreamy

roman-ticism Technically, he produced

v.

"straight" prints in the style of thePhoto Secessionists (Stieglitz,Weston, Steichen, etc.) as well asheavily manipulated images, whichthe Photo Secessionists had rejected

Moreover, he used both approachesinterchangeably, according to his in-terpretation of a particular scene

One day he might do a straight door portrait of someone on thestreet And the next day he mightpose a newly-wed couple in his

out-studio, and produce a exposed print showing their yet-to-be-born child as a ghost beside them.Van Der Zee's photographic careerwas far from easy Though hebecame interested in photography atthe age of 14 (when he purchased amail-order camera and darkroomkit), he was 30 before he was able toearn a living at it In between, heworked as a waiter, elevator operatorand even as a violinist in a dance or-

double-chestra His first photographic job,

in 1914, was as a darkroom assistant

in a department store in New York

City Two years later, he opened his

own studio in Harlem Though he

often had to change its location, Van

Der Zee kept his studio in business

until 1969

In addition to skill and creativity,

he was blessed with good timing

Black culture was flourishing in

Harlem during the 1920s Duke

Ell-ington and others were redefining

American music Adam Clayton

Powell, Langston Hughes, Countee

Cullen and Marcus Garvey were

help-ing to build a new black identity And

James Van Der Zee was the official

and unofficial photographer for all

of it He photographed proud black

couples in the streets of Harlem and

in elegant clubs Celebrities and

"or-dinary people" posed in his studio

He photographed weddings and

funerals All together, he compiled

some 75,000 glass plates, negatives

and prints All of it revealing a world

that was all but ignored by the

better-known photographers of that time

Van Der Zee received virtually no

recognition outside of Harlem until

1967 At that time, he was featured

in an exhibit, entitled "Harlem on My

Mind," at New York's Metropolitan

Museum of Art For the last 14 years

of his life, his photography was

widely exhibited, published and

praised He died at the age of 97,

while in Washington, D.C to receive

an honorary degree from Howard

University

proaches to photography

In Europe, Andre Kertesz, EugeneAtget, Brassai, and Henri Carder-Bresson were among the most not-able of the new wave of artistphotographers They each devotedthemselves to capturing life as itreally was, in the boulevards andback alleys and country lanes ofEurope Yet each did so with adistinct and original style, a unique

"way of seeing." They saw thatphotography was a new and indepen-

A New BreedPhotography was coming into itsown, both as an art and as a business

Alfred Steiglitz united photographyand painting by opening "Gallery291," which exhibited new work ineither medium In his own photog-raphy and in his critical judgmentSteiglitz promoted a lively realismthat eventually became the standardfor art photography From 1902 to

1917, he published Camera Work, the

first magazine devoted to artistic

ap-Eugene Atget, L'Escalier de L'Hotel Charron, 7900.

From Blurs to Big Business 21

Edward Steichen, Gloria Swanson,

1924.

dent art, not merely a cheap imitation

of painting Because of this, they —

along with Steiglitz and other

American peers — may be thought of

as the first modern photographers

More practical applications of

photography also continued One of

the most notable examples was a

photographic survey, begun in 1935,

of conditions during the Great

Depression Dorothea Lange,

Walk-er Evans and othWalk-er first-rate

pho-tographers were hired by this

pro-ject by the U.S government's Farm

Security Administration and

com-piled hundreds of photographs that

rank among the best ever produced

The use of photographs in

publica-tions, a novelty as recently as 1900,

was expanding rapidly Life magazine

started in 1936 and began a whole

new kind of publishing:

photo-j o u r n a l i s m Alfred Eisenstat,

Margaret Bourke-White and other

photographers on Life's staff quickly

became famous as they recorded the

world's events with their cameras

By the end of the 1930s, all the

basic ingredients that continue to

define photography were in place:

Photography was increasingly

its 6-20

camera.

1939

Electronic flash developed by

Dr Harold Edgerton.

1947

First Polaroid camera developed by Edwin Land.

1954

First high-speed film, Tri-X, comes onto market.

22 The Photographic Eye

Yousef Karsh, Ethiopian Bride,

1963 Courtesy Woodfin Camp and Associates.

cepted as an art in its own right.Photojournalists were a major source

of information and insight for thegeneral public (a role that has sincebeen largely taken over by televisionreporters) Advertising had begunusing photography to catch attention

or communicate a message Portablecameras had made snapshots a na-tional hobby

Where Now?

The list of technical advances inphotography continues to get longerand longer (see the photographic timeline), and the ranks of greatphotographers has expanded steadily

as well Edward Steichen, MinorWhite, Sebastiao Salgado, EdwardWeston, Ansel Adams, Diane Arbus,Ernst Haas, Eugene Richards the list

is long and subject to fierce debate.Photography is still a young art.Painting, sculpture, writing, dance,acting and music have all beenaround for thousands of years Eventhey continue to change at an oftenalarming rate This is all the moretrue of photography, which has

1972

Polaroid adds color toils instant cameras.

1985

Minolta introduces the first professional quality automatic focus camera, the Maxxum.

1987

Canon debuts first

"Commercial Still Video"

system.

1991

Kodak launches Photo CD system and digital camera.

From Blurs to Big Business 23

FOCAL POINT: Manuel Alvarez Bravo,

1902-Manuel Alvarez Bravo, Retrato de lo Eterno (Portrait of the Eternal),

1935 Courtesy The Witkin Gallery, New York.

Throughout the world,

photog-raphers have used the camera to

observe, interpret and record their

own cultures and environments In

the process, some have also

achiev-ed unique styles that are particularly

appropriate to specific times and

places Manuel Alvarez Bravo is

among a select group of

photog-raphers who have gone a step

further —discovering a way of seeing

that seems to express the spirit of an

entire culture

Great works of art are rarely

created in a vacuum Instead, even

the most gifted artist draws on a

lifetime of experiences and

impres-sions The work of other artists is

almost always an important

in-fluence Additional influences may

include one's level of wealth or

poverty; the personalities and values

of friends and family; the climate,

colors, sounds and rituals that are

part of daily life By combining a

variety of local and international

in-fluences, some artists are able to

create art t h a t b r e a k s t h r o u g h

cultural barriers without losing a

sense of cultural roots Bravo is one

photographer who has done t h i s

In his case, the culture is that of

Mexico He was born in Mexico City,

and has continued to be based there

throughout his life His father and

grandfather were both artists, one a

painter and the other a photographer

Before becoming interested in

pho-tography, Bravo studied literature,

music and painting, beginning in

1917 In 1922, he began

experimen-ting with photography By 1926, he

was using a camera to produce

abstract images of folded paper By

the early 1930's he was among the

leaders of a creative surge in Mexicanart

His first solo exhibit was held inMexico City in 1932 Soon after, hebecame acquainted with Paul Strand,Henri Carder-Bresson, Walker Evansand other photographers who weregaining i n t e r n a t i o n a l attention

Bravo also met Andre Breton, who

is credited with creating the Surrealiststyle of painting Surrealism, whichemploys the symbols and imagery ofdreams, became a major influence onBravo's photographic style

In his best work, Bravo combinesthe technical skill and confidence ofphotographers like Strand andEvans; the ability to capture a

"decisive moment" that is acteristic of Carder-Bresson; and theoften disturbing dreamlike qualities

char-of Surrealist paintings To this mix char-ofartistic influences, he adds a deep andproud understanding of Mexican cul-ture and a keen awareness of lightand mood The result is a vision that

is both highly private and universallyaccessible

24 The Photographic Eye

Minor White, Moon and Wall Encrustations, 1964.

barely passed its first century of

wide-spread use

With most of the traditional arts,

change has primarily been a matter

of style Michaelangelo and Picasso

used essentially the same materials

and techniques to produce vastly

dif-ferent results Writers may use

com-puters now, rather than quill pens, but

the process of writing hasn't really

changed very much since

Shake-speare's day Writing styles, however,

have changed enormously

In the case of photography,

al-most the opposite is now true:

Pho-tography's essential nature (what it is

and how it works) is in the midst ofradical transformation — a techno-logical revolution Photography it-self is mutating into something newand strange and unpredictable

Compared to that, stylistic changeshardly seem to matter

What is actually happening is thatphotography (along with computergraphics, electronic music and othertechnology-based arts) is movingaway from the traditional, "manual"

arts (such as painting or classicalmusic) As a result, we are discover-ing entirely new ideas of how art may

be created and experienced

The old distinctions between oneform of art and another are breakingdown Words, images and music areall beginning to merge The musicvideos on MTV are one typical ex-ample of this trend They aren't sim-ply songs and they aren't quitemovies They are a new hybrid: mu-sic and film merging into a new form

of creative expression Some of themtell stories Some are more like mini-documentaries Some resemble thesong-and-dance numbers of aBroadway musical Similarly, it is in-creasingly difficult to define the dif-ference between a painting and a

photograph, or even between a

pho-tograph and a poem

In addition, all of the arts are

be-coming more participatory In the

very near future, it may no longer be

standard procedure for an artist to

create some specific "thing" - a

photograph or a symphony — which

others simply receive by looking or

listening Instead, each individual

viewer or listener will have the power

to edit, combine and transform an

enormous array of images and

sounds Your photograph will be raw

material which you may manipulate

in any way you please, and to which

others may then add their own

inter-pretations — and it will all be done

by computer It is far too early to tell

if all of this is actually an

improve-ment, but it is certainly a change

That is what's coming But it isn't

quite here yet

We are standing on the bridge

be-tween photography's past and its

fu-ture And so we are able to move

back and forth between them We

can shoot a roll of film on Uncle

Frank's old Pentax, make a print in a

traditional darkroom and then

re-interpret it on a copy machine — or

scan it into a Mac and make it all

look really weird There is still a

se-cure place for conventional art

pho-tography, and a wide open field for

experimentation

We are at the end of an era — and

at the start of a new one This is a

privileged place to be Enjoy it

PHOTOGRAPHIC

CAREERS

The number of people who earn a

"living wage" from any art is always

relatively small Photography is

cer-tainly a case in point Most

pho-tographers are hobbyists who take

Wedding photography requires technical accuracy, good social skills and and the ability to quickly arrange natural poses for individuals and large groups Photograph by Donald Butler.

pictures for pleasure Even many ofthe best-known art photographerspay their bills by doing commer-cial photography or other work onthe side

U n f o r t u n a t e l y , being "good" oreven "the best" won't necessarilymake any difference Many excellent

photographers have died penniless

At least a few have made good ings without having much skill orcreativity That's the way of all art —timing, luck and who you know are

liv-at least as important as masteringyour craft

26 The Photographic Eye

Fortunately, however, commercial

photography can be a very rewarding

career or sideline Everything from

weddings to wars seems to require a

photographic record Most

commer-cial products rely on photography for

packaging and advertising And there

is even a steadily growing market for

photographs as pure art — though it's

not likely to make you rich

The basic categories of

profes-sional photographic work include:

weddings and other social events,

portraiture, journalism, product

photography and fashion Depending

on the work you choose, the time you

devote to it and your luck and skill,

you could earn from a few hundred

to over a thousand dollars a day

In each of these categories, there

are two ways of working: staff and

freelance A staff photographer is

just like any employee, receiving a

salary and clocking regular hours A

freelance photographer is hired for

specific jobs and is generally paid by

the day Freelancers tend to earnmore than staff photographers foreach day they work, but staff photog-raphers work more steadily In otherwords, staff photographers are lesslikely either to get rich or to go broke

Freelancers take more risks and have

a better chance of making it big

Weddings and Portraits

Probably the largest number of fessional photographers are primarilydevoted to photographing socialevents, especially weddings The paycan be quite good —several hundreddollars per day Many wedding pho-tographers are represented by anagent who sets up photo assignmentsfor them Many work only a couple

pro-of days each week, generally ends (when weddings are most com-monly held) Wedding photographersmust be able to produce consistentlygood results, since there's no chancefor re-shooting if things get messed

week-up They must be especially good at

Arnold Newman, Igor Stravinsky, 1946.

flash photography, since much oftheir work is done indoors on loca-tion In addition, they must be skilled

at interacting well with all sorts ofpeople By and large, weddingphotography does not demand muchartistry —most clients don't want art.It's a good line of work for anyonewho enjoys the technical side ofphotography and who likes tosocialize

Closely related to weddings andsocial e v e n t s is p o r t r a i t u r e -photographing a single person orsmall group Whether it's for apassport photo or a prom portrait,everyone needs a photographer some-time Virtually every town in thecountry has at least one studio forjust these kinds of things Here again,the main requirements are technicalconsistency —particularly in terms ofstudio lighting —and social grace

FOCAL POINT: Margaret Bourke-White

Photojournalism

Journalistic photography ranges

from covering a fire on Elm Street for

the local newspaper to traveling to

Tahiti for a major magazine

Photo-journalists must possess good

in-stincts above all else Sensing when

a photo opportunity is about to

oc-cur and knowing how to handle it are

of vital importance Being a first-rate

photo-technician is helpful but

not strictly essential

A more commercial field related to

photojournalism is freelance location

photography Corporate annual

reports, slide presentations,

promo-tional brochures, in-house

publica-tions, trade magazines (Plumbers'

Digest or New England Beverage

Retailer, for example) all require

professional-quality photography

Being able to handle any lighting or

composition challenge quickly and

accurately is the critical factor here

An ability to blend into the corporate

environment is also essential

Razzle Dazzle

At the top of the career heap

finan-cially are illustration, product, food

and fashion photography This is

where knowing the right people and

being in the right place at the right

time are of critical importance A

flair for style helps too You also

have to be very good if you expect to

have more than a brief career The

competition is stiff because the

rewards are high A top-notch

pro-duct, food or fashion photographer

will charge $2,000 or more per day

A comparable illustration

photog-rapher might earn the same amount

for a single photograph Nice work

if you can get it

Today we take photojournalism forgranted We expect our magazine ar-ticles to be illustrated with photo-graphs that add insights and impact

of their own But, like photographyitself, photojournalism had to be in-vented One of the people who played

a major role in inventing it wasMargaret Bourke-White

While in college, Bourke-Whitediscovered that she excelled at pho-tography After graduating fromCornell, she began working as a pro-fessional photographer She wasespecially intrigued by the surge oftechnological developments at thattime and used her camera to conveythe power and beauty she saw ineverything from clock parts to steelmills From 1929 to 1933, she was an

industrial photographer for Fortune

magazine Her work there was notlimited to machine parts and con-struction projects, however In 1934,she covered the drought known as the

"Dust Bowl" that swept through theGreat Plains, showing how that trag-edy affected the lives of farmers andtheir families This article was a mile-stone in photojournalism Thoughother photographers, such as LewisHine, had done similar reporting onsocial issues, none had done so for amajor magazine

After becoming a staff

photog-rapher for Life magazine in 1936,

Bourke-White continued to coverboth technological progress andhuman suffering The very first issue

of Life featured one of her

photo-graphs on the cover: a dramaticimage of a massive dam constructionproject She provided extensivecoverage of World War II, mostnotably the horrors discovered whenthe Allies liberated the concentrationcamps She photographed the gran-deur and starvation of India in thelate 1940s, black South AfricanMiners in 1950, and the Korean War

in 1952

By the mid-1950s, Bourke-Whitewas suffering from Parkinson'sDisease, which progressively reducesthe body's ability to control its move-

ments She left the staff of Life in

1969 and died two years later.Though she was neither a masterstylist nor an exceptional technician,Bourke-White was among the first toclearly understand the camera'spower to record "history in the mak-ing." She helped establish standardsfor commitment, concern and sheerenergy that photojournalists havestruggled to live up to ever since

28 The Photographic Eye

Margaret Bourke-White, Airship Akron, Winner Goodyear Zeppelin Race, 1931.

A flair for the exotic and a sophisticated sense of humor are important assets in fashion photography Photograph by Bane Kapsu.

30 The Photographic Eye

Mixed in with these general categories

are numerous photographic

special-ties: scientific, sports, underwater,

travel, architectural, art

reproduc-tion, etc Matching your skills and

in-terests to one of these niches may be

the most satisfying career path of all

By specializing in one particular

aspect of photography, rather than

competing in a broader category, you

have a good chance of establishing a

clear identity and of focusing in on

a steady market Word-of-mouth

rec-ommendation is always a

photog-rapher's best advertising You stand

to benefit most from it if you earn a

good reputation for a specific set of

skills

If you enjoy photographing

build-ings, for example, you can make a

career of it, hiring yourself out to

ar-chitectural and construction firms or

to design magazines If you're very

precise and detail oriented, you might

get into photographing art for

museums If you like flying, you

might consider aerial photography If

you prefer swimming, consider

underwater photography

There are career opportunities in

photographic processing as well

Here again, developing a specific set

of skills is recommended Some

pho-tographers specialize in a

photo-graphic style that requires certain

processes, such as antique style

sepia-toned or hand-tinted prints When

someone needs that particular style

for a magazine illustration or

cor-porate annual report, a specialist will

generally be selected The same rule

applies to those who offer processing

services to other photographers

Retouchers, for example, are paidhandsomely to fix mistakes or other-wise alter a photo's appearance

Skilled darkroom techicians, izing in black and white or color, arehighly regarded and well paid

special-Finally, there are many other jobsthat don't require regular use of acamera or darkroom but can, none-theless, keep a photographer "intouch." These include selling andrepairing cameras, m a i n t a i n i n gphotographic libraries or stock-agency files, curating in photographygalleries or museums, or even help-ing to develop new designs, formulasand processes for cameras or film

Looking Ahead

In virtually any photography-relatedfield, the key to getting started is toput together a winning portfolio —

an elegant, professional collection ofyour best work Your portfolio willtell a prospective employer or clientwhat you can do, so it should be of aconsistently high standard — rightdown to the details of excellent printquality, good mounting techniqueand slick presentation If you arefortunate enough to have some ofyour photographs published (by a lo-cal newspaper, for example, or even

in a school publication) these called tear sheets (as in a torn-outpage) — should be included as well:

-Cut out the full page on which yourphotograph appears and mount it asyou would a standard print, or slip itinto a plastic sheet (Use part of apage if the whole thing is too big tofit the size mat you're using for your

prints, but be sure to include the ning head or foot that indicates thename and date of the publication.)Your portfolio should also be tai-lored to the kind of work you'reseeking If you hope to be hired as alab technician, emphasize printquality If you want to cover localnews events, include some goodaction shots If advertising interestsyou, try to create some still-life pho-tographs that have the "look-and-feel" of studio composition andlighting If you'd like to pursue fash-ion photography, you might team upwith a friend who aspires to a career

run-in modelrun-ing — workrun-ing together toproduce some fashion shots that youboth can use And, of course, if youhope to sell your work as art, thenyour portfolio must show that you'veattained a high level of skill and crea-tivity

As you progress through thiscourse, it is a good idea to keep yourlong-range goals in mind It's nevertoo early to begin preparing forthem Even if you have no interest in

a photographic career, your lio is your own record of achieve-ment And you never know when itmay come in handy, so you may aswell do it right

portfo-Effective presentation (and tion to detail) is vitally important inany line of work Mastering photo-graphic technique and preparing agood portfolio will teach you valu-able skills which will serve you well,

atten-no matter what career you ultimatelychoose

part 2 Elements of Composition

Student photograph by Michael Grassia.

33

Student photograph.

chapter 2 Tools

P hotographic technology ischanging so fast that it is

ut-I terly impossible to define

the standard tools-of-the-trade with

any degree of precision Cameras

now in use range from clumsy boxes

with lots of knobs and dials to the

latest high-tech whiz-bang

contrap-tions which look like props from Star

Trek Photographic images can now

be stored on an astonishing array of

films — plus CDs, computer disks

and video tape By the time you read

this, it is likely other new

technolo-gies will have appeared, promising

even greater ease, efficiency and

op-portunities

This is all well and good, but there

is also real value in understanding

the basic principles of photography

— and that is much easier to do with

the old fashioned, manual

ap-proach True, it does take more time

to produce a photograph in this way

And potentially great shots can be

missed while you fiddle with those

knobs and dials But there is a

unique satisfaction in knowing

ex-actly what your camera is doing and

why, controlling it to achieve the

ef-fect you choose rather than merely

pointing and shooting

So, it is perhaps fortunate that

technological advances take some

time to settle in and push aside the

past Just as there are times when

writing with an antique fountain pen

is infinitely preferable to tapping at acomputer keyboard, there are bene-fits to cameras that lack the latestautomation

The essential point to all this isthat there's no need to worry if youcan't afford to buy a slick new cam-era with all the bells and whistles, astash of fancy lenses and a suitcase

full of clever attachments and sories In fact, odds are that you willbecome a better photographer if youbegin with a second-hand, second-rate old clunker that looks like anartifact from the Stone Age

acces-Not everyone needs the same kind

of tool —whether that tool is acamera or a musical instrument Aconcert violinist may require the best

35

If you choose your camera carefully and practice with it often, you'll soon learn to use it with very little effort or conscious thought It will become simply an extension of eyes and hands—responsive, accurate and comfortable (Student photograph by Trevor Bredenkamp.)

violin money can buy, but a blues

singer may make fine music with an

old beat-up guitar Similarly, some of

the world's best photographers use

the latest "high-tech" cameras; others

use antiques held together with

rub-ber bands and tape The right choice

for most of us is somewhere between

these extremes

Like any tool, each camera has a

"personality" —a mixture of

oppor-tunities and limitations that you

con-trol to express your personal vision

The goal in selecting a camera is to

find one that does what you need it

to do, no more and no less In other

words, the right camera for you is

one with a "personality" that matches

your own

So, the first rule for choosing a

camera is to make the best of what

you already have or can easily afford

After you become more experienced,

you'll be more able to decide exactly

what features you need That's the

time to invest in your particular

dream machine For now, however,

use what you have If you don't yet

own a camera, buy the least

expen-sive one that meets your basic needs

The money you save can be spent on

film and chemicals, which are far

more important at this stage than the

quality of your camera

One thing that is important, no

matter which camera you buy, is

durability No matter how careful

you are, your camera is likely to get

knocked around a bit Get one that is

strong enough to take abuse

One of the most important

dif-ferences among cameras is the lenses

that can be used with them An

inter-changeable lens can be removed from

the camera body and replaced with

another lens that produces a different

effect For example, a telephoto lens,

which works like a telescope, may be

Manual cameras provide a greater amount of creative control, especially with lighting This photograph would have been virtually impossible with most purely automatic cameras, since the lighting effect is not "normal." (Student photograph.)

used to make distant objects appearcloser

The most popular and inexpensive

cameras have a fixed lens A fixed

lens cannot be removed and, fore, cannot be changed Though notessential, interchangeable lenses can

there-be a great asset

Some modern cameras offer acompromise between fixed and inter-changeable lenses: permanently at-tached zooms Others allow you toswitch from a wide-angle to a tele-photo lens, both of which are at-tached to the camera body

Generally, these kinds of lenses aretoo limited to be very useful, butthey'll do in a pinch

There is no need to rush out andbuy a telephoto or any other non-standard lens immediately For yourfirst assignments, you will be usingonly the standard 50mm lens Even-tually, however, you will probably

want to try other lenses, so it is agood idea to use a camera that willallow you to do this Once again,

however, it is not essential If your

budget restricts you to a fixed-lenscamera, you will still be able to takeperfectly good photographs

Manual or Automatic

If you are buying a camera, you havetwo basic choices: m a n u a l or

automatic Manual cameras have

been in use far longer than automaticcameras, and they are still preferred

by many professionals They requireyou to load and wind the film, selectthe shutter speed, set the aperture,

and focus Automatic cameras will

do some or all of these things for you.The big advantage of a manualcamera is that you always controlwhat it is doing You make the deci-sions, and the camera does what you

36 The Photographic Eye

Automatic cameras are especially useful for "grab shots," when there's no

time to fiddle with knobs and dials By letting the camera make the

technical decisions, the photographer is able to concentrate on getting the

timing just right (Student photograph by Lauren McDermott.)

tell it to do As a result, you will learn

what works and what doesn't You

will also make mistakes (which is how

you learn) The main disadvantage of

a manual camera is the amount of

time required to set up a shot

Most manual cameras now

avail-able in the 35mm format have a

built-in light meter The meter built-informs you

of the lighting conditions, and you set

the speed and aperture accordingly

Older cameras, and many studio

models, require you to use a

hand-held light meter to "read" the light,

before you set the camera

Cameras with automatic light

metering also fall into two categories:

full automatic and manual-override

A full automatic chooses the aperture

or shutter speed, or both, according

to a built-in computer that is

pro-grammed to make the decision you

would probably make anyway While

this may sound very appealing, there

is a problem — and that problem is the

"probably."

As you become a more experiencedphotographer, you will sometimesdisagree with your camera's choice

You may want a picture to be a bitdarker or lighter for effect, or thecamera may be "confused" by a com-plex lighting situation With fullautomatic, there's not much you can

do to change the camera's decision

This is a poor choice for anyonewho really wants to learn aboutphotography

Manual-override offers a solution.

When you're sure the camera willmake the right decisions (i.e whenyou want a normal photograph in anormal lighting situation), you let thecamera decide When you disagree,you set the camera manually If youmake an effort to pay attention to

what the camera is doing, you can usethe automatic light meter most of thetime and still learn how to use lighteffectively If you don't make that ef-fort you won't learn much, and you'llend up taking a lot of "normal" andprobably boring pictures

If you are shooting a lot of dids" (quick, unposed photographs),like most photojournalists, theautomatic option can be a big help —since you won't miss a good shot orannoy your subject while you fumblewith knobs and dials If you're doing

"can-a lot of still-life or n"can-ature raphy, or if you prefer to take yourtime, as most art photographers do,

photog-a mphotog-anuphotog-al cphotog-amerphotog-a will do just photog-as well,and will teach you more

All the other automatic featuresare far less important Loading andwinding the film manually will soonbecome second nature to you, so hav-ing it done automatically is not much

of an advantage (unless you havereason to be in a real hurry) Auto-focus is another asset for the "grab-shooter," though focusing shouldn'ttake more than a split second onceyou get the hang of it

What Format?

Most modern cameras use 35mmfilm This is a relatively small formatthat allows many frames to fit on asingle roll As a result, it costs less pershot than larger formats In addition,the smaller format means the cameracan be smaller and lighter, so it'seasier to carry and use

There is one advantage to largerformats: the grain of the film Allfilm stores images in tiny dots Whenthe film is enlarged, the dots begin toshow This is grain If you are mak-ing a large print (such as for an ex-hibit or a full page in a magazine),grain can be a problem Too much

Tools 37

Each kind of lens has its own characteristics and uses The wide-angle lens used for this photograph produced a slightly surreal effect Much of the photograph's impact would have been lost with either a normal or a telephoto lens (Student photograph by John Berringer.)

grain reduces the image quality It

begins to look "grainy."

For most uses, including most

ex-hibit formats, the ease of using

35mm outweighs the drawbacks of

grain And, as films continue to

im-prove, grain is becoming less and less

of a problem After you've

devel-oped your skill and style, you may

want to move up to larger formats,

but you can decide that later

Choosing a Lens

In many ways, choosing the right lens

or lenses is even more important thanchoosing the right camera

Once you've selected some brandnames you trust and can afford, youface another choice: which lenses tobuy Most cameras come equippedwith a 50mm lens This is the stan-dard lens for 35mm photography,because it is closest to normal vision

What you see through the camera will

look the same as what you see withyour own eyes Whatever lenses youeventually buy, you will want to in-clude the 50mm range (By the way,

if you find 50mm lenses and 35mmfilm confusing, don't worry Theseand other terms will graduallybecome familiar to you as you usethem.)

If you have a choice (and you oftenwon't) you might consider buying thecamera body and lens separately

38 The Photographic Eye

This will enable you to choose a

variable focal-length, or "zoom," lens

instead of a "fixed focal-length" lens

As explained in Chapter 11, the

focal-length of a lens determines how

wide an area you can see through it

In effect, the 50mm lens draws a box

within which objects are normal in

size and proportion A shorter lens,

such as a 35mm, draws a larger box,

and makes objects appear smaller

and somewhat "bent" or distorted A

longer lens, such as a 135mm, draws

a smaller box, making objects appear

larger and more compressed (with

less space between them) With each

fixed focal-length lens you have only

one choice

With a zoom (variable

focal-length) lens, you have many choices

A zoom lens is essentially several

lenses in one For example, if a zoom

lens ranges from 35mm to 135mm,

you will have the same choices as you

would if you bought the three

focal-lengths just mentioned (35mm,

50mm and 135mm), plus all the

focal-lengths in between

Any good modern zoom lens will

match the image quality of a typical

fixed focal-length lens (Early zooms

produced poor image quality at

"in-between" focal-lengths, such as

42mm This problem has been

cor-rected on most modern models.) You

will, however, almost certainly lose

some of the lower (larger) apertures

offered by fixed focal-length lenses

Since a large aperture lets in more

light than a small one, a zoom lens

may limit your ability to photograph

in low-light situations or at high

shut-ter speeds

If your budget permits, it is useful

to have the three basic lens ranges:

wide-angle, "normal" (50mm), and

telephoto However, the normal lens

is the most important Do not start

your photo career with only a angle or only a telephoto It's per-fectly all right to start it with only a50mm Once again, the best pro-cedure is probably to start simply,with just a standard lens, and addothers as you decide you need them

wide-If you are thinking of investing inmore than one lens, review Chapter

11 before making any decisions

What Price?

How much should you pay for acamera? Well, it really depends onwhat you can easily afford Goodcameras are available for as little as

$50 Top professional models cancost several thousand dollars

If your budget limits you to under

$100, buy the best manual camerayou can f i n d —perhaps a goodsecond-hand model If you can af-ford more, take a careful look at the

$100 to $500 range, keeping in mindthe features you care most about(automatic features, manual features,durability, lenses), and buy the onethat best suits you A fully profes-sional camera system —which you ab-

solutely do not need at this stage — i s

likely to cost over $1,000, depending

on your choice of lenses

Before buying any camera, readreviews of several in cameramagazines (see the Bibliography fornames of some good ones) Asksomeone you know who does a lot ofphotography to give you somerecommendations Then make an in-formed decision

Selecting a lens may be more ficult The quality of the glass andconstruction varies considerably Acheap lens may result in photographsthat are always out of focus, blurryaround the edges or grainy

dif-A good rule of thumb is to stickwith the brand names you know All

camera manufacturers make lensesfor their cameras that you can trust

to be as well-made as the cameras Inaddition, cameras with automaticfeatures may require that you staywith the same brand when buyinglenses However, many companiesproduce lenses designed for use with

a variety of cameras These may be

as good as or better than the cameramanufacturer's own lenses and oftencost less Read the reviews in cameramagazines and ask for the advice ofexperienced photographers beforeyou decide

One final note on lenses: Buy a UV(ultraviolet) or a "skylight" filter foreach lens, attach it and leave it on atall times Either of these filters willhelp a little to reduce haze undersome lighting conditions, but theirreal use is to protect the lens itselffrom damage Should you acciden-tally scratch the filter, it can be inex-pensively replaced Replacing the lenswould of course be far more costly.Summary

There are only three key points youneed to understand at this point:First, start with the basics —a simple,relatively inexpensive camera with a50mm lens Ideally, your camera willpermit you to use other ("inter-changeable") lenses as well Youshould have at least one lens thatopens up to f/2.8, and all lensesshould have UV or skylight filters at-tached Second, choose a camera thatincludes manual controls for apertureand shutter-speed Full manual isfine; automatic features are nice ex-tras, but they are not necessary.Third, make sure that both yourcamera and lens are manufactured by

a reliable company If you begin withthese essentials, you'll be wellequipped to learn photography

Tools 39

Additional Tools

Once you've selected a camera and

lens (or lenses), you have taken care

of the big decisions Later, you may

want to add other tools, such as a

tripod and flash, but they can wait

Refer to Appendix 4 for more

infor-mation on them when the time

comes There are, however, a few

other inexpensive tools you'll need in

order to get started

As soon as you begin producing

photographs, you'll want to store

your negatives and prints, to keep

them clean and organized Plastic

sheets specially designed for storing

negatives are available that fit into a

standard three-ring binder Buy a box

of these and a binder to file them in

Immediately after developing and

drying each roll of film, you will cut

the roll into shorter lengths (five

frames each) and slip them into the

negative file The next step is to place

the film directly onto a piece of

photographic paper to make a

con-tact print (see Appendix 1 for

ex-planation) With a plastic negative

file, this can be done directly Paper

files are also available They require

you to remove the film to make a

contact print, however, so are not as

easy to use as plastic sheets

Similar sheets are available for

storing prints If your photo store

doesn't carry them, you can probably

find them in an office supply store

Any plastic sheet that will hold

8'/2" x 11" paper, with holes for a

three-ring binder, will do fine

You will also want an ordinary

grease pencil (yellow or white) to

mark your contacts when you're

deciding which frames to print

Grease pencil marks show up well

in the darkroom, and they can be

rubbed off if you change your mind

Finally, be sure to have the

instruc-tions for your camera available at alltimes If you are buying a newcamera, this will be easy If not, youmay have to search a bit, or buy one

of the many books available ing different camera models If youcan't locate instructions, have some-one who knows the camera well showyou how it works — a n d be sure totake notes

describ-Basic Tools Checklist

The following tools are all you willneed to get started Check to see thatyou have them, and that your cameraand lens meet the key requirementslisted here:

Camera RequirementsDurabilityManual Aperture & Shutter-Speed Controls

Reliable ManufacturerInterchangeable LensCapability

Lens RequirementsStandard Focal-Length(50mm)

172.8Reliable Manufacturer_ UV Filter

Additional ToolsPlastic Negative FilesPlastic Print SheetsGrease PencilOperations Manual or OtherInstructions for Camera

THE CAMERA, INSIDE

& OUT

Most 35mm cameras are fairly similar

in the design and placement of keycontrols For example, the film ad-vance lever (the "winder") is generally

on the top right, next to the shutterrelease Advances in electronics,however, are turning cameras into

mini-computers Many are utterly

u n l i k e the traditional models Somenew ones, for example, come with abuilt-in auto-winder and don't have

a film advance lever at all

So, the following pages are not tended as a substitute for yourcamera's manual No one list can becorrect and complete for all camerabrands and models You may have tohunt a bit to locate some of the com-ponents on your camera, since eachmodel tends to have its little quirks.Check your own manual to be surethat you know where each compo-nent is located on your camera andhow it works

in-The following pages are intended

as a summary of the basic ponents of a typical, traditionalcamera This will give you an idea ofhow your camera compares to mostothers

You may not find all of the ponents that are listed here, eitherbecause they are not included in yourcamera or because they have beenreplaced by an automatic feature It

com-is still a good idea to become familiarwith all of them Understanding eachcomponent of a traditional camerawill help you understand how eventhe simplest or most automaticcamera works And knowing how acamera works is vital to using it well

As you read this section, compareeach description with your owncamera Be sure to have your owncamera's manual on hand to clarifyany questions Look for each compo-nent as it is described, and try it out

Do not put film into the camera til instructed to do so

un-40 The Photographic Eye

The Camera Body: Outside

• Viewfinder

The first thing to look at on yourcamera is the part that allows you to

look through it The viewfinder, in

simplest terms, is just a rectangularwindow that shows you what will be

in your photograph when you clickthe shutter (Actually, viewfindersgenerally show you a bit less thanyou'll actually get This is usually anadvantage, as it gives you a little

"slack" when you're making a print.)Your viewfinder is probably quite

a bit more than just a window,however It certainly will includesome kind of focusing aid One com-mon focusing aid is a split circle(called a split-image focusing screen)

in which out-of-focus objects do notline up correctly Another commonkind is a series of circles (called aground-glass focusing screen) that go

in and out of focus as you turn thefocusing ring on the lens

The split-image screen is especiallyhelpful if you're at all nearsighted Touse it, you simply adjust the focus-ing ring until both sides of the circleline up It works best when the split

is placed across a line of some kind,such as an eyelid or a branch, so youcan see what you're lining up

In addition, most modern camerasuse the sides of the viewfinder toshow you important information.This may include the aperture of yourlens, the camera's shutter-speed,

Tools 41

whether the camera is in manual or

automatic mode, whether your flash

has recharged, etc

Take some time to explore your

viewfinder If you aren't certain what

everything in it means, consult the

user's manual for your camera or ask

an experienced photographer

• ASA/ISO

The first step of any photo

assign-ment is to set the correct film speed.

This will be listed on the film carton,

or box, (and also on the canister, the

metal container holding the film) as

ASA or ISO These two terms are

used to describe the same thing: the

film's sensitivity to light In fact they

often appear together, as ASA/ISO

ISO is becoming the more common

term, however, so we'll be using it

throughout this book (Both "ASA"

and "ISO" are the initials of

organizations — t h e American

Stan-dards Association and the

Interna-tional Standards Organization —that

establish scientific measurements.)

The ISO indicator is generally built

into the rewind knob, on the left side

of the top of the camera The ISO

numbers are usually visible through

a little window in the rewind knob

Each number is usually double the

preceding number: 25, 50, 100, 200,

400, 800, etc Dots between the

numbers indicate settings in between

these numbers So, for example, ISO

125 is one dot above ISO 100

You must remember to change the

ISO setting every time you use a ferent kind of film If you are usingany automatic exposure system, yourcamera will base its decisions on theISO setting you've selected If it'swrong, all your photos will be incor-rectly exposed

dif-The same holds true for the era's internal light meter If you'resetting the shutter speed or apertureaccording to the meter, your ex-posures will only be correct if the ISOsetting is correct Even if you're do-ing everything manually, the ISO set-ting is an important reminder of whatkind of film you're using

cam-To change the ISO setting, yougenerally turn a knob that moves thenumbers through the indicator win-dow You may first need to press abutton, lift the knob or otherwiserelease a lock designed to prevent youfrom changing the setting acciden-tally On many modern cameras,you'll change the ISO by pressing abutton until the right number comes

up in a display panel Some cameraswill set the ISO for you automat-ically, reading the proper setting from

a code on the film canister (Film thathas been coded for this purpose islabeled "DX.")

Locate the ISO indicator on yourcamera Adjust the setting to see howlow and high it goes Professionalcameras will provide ISO settings aslow as 6 and as high as 6400 Manypopular models have a range of 12 to

3200 Don't worry if yours doesn't go

as high or as low as that Most filmsfall between ISO 25 and 1200

Once you've checked out the limits

of your camera's ISO indicator, set

it to ISO 125 This is the speed forKodak's Plus-X film, which you will

be using in your first assignment

The most commonly used shutterspeeds are probably 60 and 125 Bothare fast enough to stop most actionwith a 50mm lens, while allowing for

a fairly small aperture in mostlighting conditions

Notice that 125 (or 1/125 of a ond) is almost exactly twice as fast as

sec-60 (or 1/sec-60 of a second) The nextspeed above 125 is 250— twice as fastagain Depending on your camera,the highest speed may be 1000 or evenhigher, fast enough to "freeze" a bird

in flight or a race car at the Indy 500.Moving down from 60, the nextspeed is 30 Again depending on yourcamera, the shutter speeds may go aslow as 1, for 1 second Some camerasprovide even longer automaticallytimed exposures, even as long as aminute or more

The last indicator on the speed control should be a "B." This