Showing posts with label reciprocity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label reciprocity. Show all posts

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

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.
 
   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 panningI 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. 

Monday, September 19, 2011

Teaching what the heck reciprocity means

   We officially ended the law and ethics portion of study today with a fitting conclusion - a 40-point test. I'm happy to report everyone passed! So, with a basic understand of what news is and what their rights are, we are moving on to my favorite part of the course: explaining camera controls, exposure metering and compositional elements.
   This morning, when I asked the students what reciprocity means, I mostly got blank stares. I understand that, considering it took me a few weeks just to learn how to say the word. I know what they were thinking: what the heck is reciprocity? It's a math miracle! The concept of taking these weird sets of numbers (ISO, shutter speeds and f/stops) and making them work in unison is amazing stuff, and I love teaching it. OK, I admit the reason I enjoy teaching is because it makes me feel, well, smart.
   I started out as a journalist. I'm pretty good with words and have a knack for spelling. So, when I started taking photos for my stories (when I was a cub reporter), the camera controls were totally confusing to me. It wasn't until I was an assistant instructor at a two-week Army photojournalism workshop in the early 1990s that it clicked. I've had a yearning to be a teacher ever since.
   Maybe it's a good thing that a word person is teaching a numbers game...because I can sympathize with the blank stares and the resistance to memorize 2.8, 4, 5.6, 8, 11, 16 and 22. Brilliant.