Students learn about reciprocity and the power of display

Reciprocity is a lesson in camera control

Take note of the blurry background in this image of a moving vehicle. This

effect is achieved by using a slow shutter speed and panning my camera with

movement of the vehicle. (PHO245/Jen Hannum)

By Jen Hannum

   I learned a lot about cameras and how they work while studying camera operations in my photojournalism class this week,
   Did you know that a fixed lens isn’t defined by whether the lens zooms or not? It is actually a lens that stays at its minimum aperture no matter what focal length you set it to.
   We also touched on basic compositional elements, as well as a reminder of how to control our shutter speed, aperture and ISO to achieve the creative control of our images.
   Reciprocity is the process of setting all the controls on my camera to capture an image with my desired creative outcome, which should be determined in my head before I even put that camera to my face.
   Camera operations is really all about knowing my camera and how to achieve the look I desire in my images, and not letting the camera decide for me.

Posted by Jen Hannum's Photojournalism Blog

 

   The above blog post is from PHO245 student Jen Hannum. I’m proud to highlight the work of Jen, who flawlessly demonstrated a technique called panning.  I posted it in its entirety because it’s the epitome of what's expected from a typical student blog post. 

   Students are expected to publish short essays on their blogs each week,  forcing them to strengthen their writing skills. This is also where they will display their photographic work the rest of the semester. They will learn basic layout and design principles, which is just as important as the text and photos they display. If a display is bad, then readers will be too distracted to care about the rest. A good display exhibits attention to detail and an understanding of good showmanship.  

  These are basic layout and design principles to keep in mind:

• No trapped white space
• People and objects, like cars, should face toward the copy, not off the page
• If a photo is on left, then use flush left or block text, and if photo is on the right, use flush right or block text
• Photo captions are flush left or block 
• Use photos LARGE

   From now on every student will display their photos on their blogs. These are their upcoming shooting assignments: feature, portrait, sports and individual/group photo stories.   

   You can find their blogs by clicking on the Student Blog Roll/Fall 2012 in the top menu bar.