Expert Article
Eat, sleep, capture, repeat.
The ultimate guide to taking the perfect shot in every situation.
How many of you have ever taken a photograph in their life? I’d bet that almost a hundred percent of my readers would answer “Yes, of course, what a question!”. But are you actually sure you took a photograph in the actual sense of this word? No, I’m not kidding you at all. When I talk about photography, I don’t mean shooting with your iPhone or posting a story on Snapchat.
One of the most famous professional photographers ever, Sebastião Salgado, once said: “what people do with their smartphone is not photography, it’s just images.” (Silva) Everybody is good at touching the camera icon on the homepage of their phone, aiming the objective at a random subject without caring too much and then pressing the “shoot” button.
Photography is much more than this. Actually, within photography, there is as much art as there is science. Like every art, it requires creativity and talent. But, as a science, it involves knowledge and practice as well. There are those who are born with the eye of the photographer and those who will become good by doing practice.
What I will try to explain throughout this article is the fascinating world of a wonderful discipline – photography. Actual photography. So, take a camera, a tripod, a deep breath, and let’s take off for this amazing journey.
A subtle meaning
“We have much pleasure in announcing an important discovery made by M. Daguerre, the celebrated painter of the Diorama. This discovery seems like a prodigy. It disconcerts all the theories of science in light and optics and, if borne out, promises to make a revolution in the arts of design.” (Gaucheraud)
This is how La Gazette de France announced in 1839 a discovery that would completely change people’s lives in the following two centuries. It wasn’t photography as we know it yet. It was the “daguerreotype”, but the underlying mechanism was the same – “drawing with light”.
The word “photography” comes from the union of two Greek words:
Technical know-how
Unless you shoot in the “AUTO” mode (boo!), photography requires a deep knowledge of the camera and its apparatus. Most people don’t even know the mechanism behind a tool that is so popular nowadays. The main function of a camera is to collect light.
From a technical point of view, taking a picture means setting parameters and combining them according to the light of the scene. It revolves all around exposure (Guadagnini). A correctly exposed image means that the right amount of light has reached the image sensor. There are two ways you can keep the light flow constant:
Aperture, shutter speed, and ISO (this stranger)
The aperture is namely the diameter of the lens opening and is usually controlled by a sort of iris. It works like your pupils that are dilated in a dark room but immediately contract under bright light. The larger the aperture, the more light reaches the image sensor. Aperture is expressed as F-stop (e.g. F2.8 or f/2.8). A smaller F-stop number corresponds to a larger lens opening and aperture.
The shutter speed can range from a thousandth of a second up to 30 seconds or even more. When you use fast shutter speeds, the image sensor is exposed for only a small amount of time, and vice versa. As you can see from the table below, these two factors are inversely related, but different combinations give the same result.
Watch out! You must use a tripod when using slow shutter speeds. Otherwise, the flickering of your hands will make your photograph appear blurry. Just remember that to take a clean picture with bare hands, the slowest shutter speed you can set is 1/30 of a second. Unless you are a professional photographer with a very steady hand!
A third way to control exposure is by adjusting the ISO – basically the sensitivity of the sensor. The higher the ISO value, the higher the sensitivity to light. High ISO values are usually used for "night photography" due to the lack of light in such conditions.
The "bucket analogy"
There is a very useful tool on the display of modern digital cameras. I’m used to calling it the best friend of photographers – the exposure meter. It consists of a little axis ranging between +3 and –3. The upper limit corresponds to an overexposed (too bright) image and the lower one is evidence of an underexposed (too dark) picture. Guess what the exposure meter will show for a correctly exposed shot? Zero, exactly. This is what you have to check every time when setting the parameters and before pressing the shutter release button.
When I first learned about photography in high school, I found it really helpful to think about the "bucket analogy" (The Exposure Triangle). In order to collect the same amount of water, you have to control three variables:
Obviously, when shooting with your smartphone, a built-in software will automatically adjust all these parameters for you. But what is the sake of letting a machine do all the work? I feel it’s worth making an effort. Especially when the pictures that you are taking will become permanent memories for the rest of your life.
Half science, half art
This is just the fundamentals of photography, what every photographer – amateur or professional – must know. Once you become skilled with the technical aspect of the discipline, the rest is up to your creativity. The most important tool for mastering photography is your mind.
I attach here some photographs that I took when I was in high school as part of a portfolio called “Dynamism and Movement”:
Works Cited:
The ultimate guide to taking the perfect shot in every situation.
How many of you have ever taken a photograph in their life? I’d bet that almost a hundred percent of my readers would answer “Yes, of course, what a question!”. But are you actually sure you took a photograph in the actual sense of this word? No, I’m not kidding you at all. When I talk about photography, I don’t mean shooting with your iPhone or posting a story on Snapchat.
One of the most famous professional photographers ever, Sebastião Salgado, once said: “what people do with their smartphone is not photography, it’s just images.” (Silva) Everybody is good at touching the camera icon on the homepage of their phone, aiming the objective at a random subject without caring too much and then pressing the “shoot” button.
Photography is much more than this. Actually, within photography, there is as much art as there is science. Like every art, it requires creativity and talent. But, as a science, it involves knowledge and practice as well. There are those who are born with the eye of the photographer and those who will become good by doing practice.
What I will try to explain throughout this article is the fascinating world of a wonderful discipline – photography. Actual photography. So, take a camera, a tripod, a deep breath, and let’s take off for this amazing journey.
A subtle meaning
“We have much pleasure in announcing an important discovery made by M. Daguerre, the celebrated painter of the Diorama. This discovery seems like a prodigy. It disconcerts all the theories of science in light and optics and, if borne out, promises to make a revolution in the arts of design.” (Gaucheraud)
This is how La Gazette de France announced in 1839 a discovery that would completely change people’s lives in the following two centuries. It wasn’t photography as we know it yet. It was the “daguerreotype”, but the underlying mechanism was the same – “drawing with light”.
This is one of my experiments on light painting. Light painting, or light drawing, is a photographic technique in which photographs are made by moving a hand-held light source while taking a long exposure photograph.
The word “photography” comes from the union of two Greek words:
- Phos means “light”
- Graphè stands for “representation by means of lines”, or simply “drawing”
Technical know-how
Unless you shoot in the “AUTO” mode (boo!), photography requires a deep knowledge of the camera and its apparatus. Most people don’t even know the mechanism behind a tool that is so popular nowadays. The main function of a camera is to collect light.
From a technical point of view, taking a picture means setting parameters and combining them according to the light of the scene. It revolves all around exposure (Guadagnini). A correctly exposed image means that the right amount of light has reached the image sensor. There are two ways you can keep the light flow constant:
- Either you let light go through a big hole for a short period of time
- Or you let it go through a small hole for a long period of time
Aperture, shutter speed, and ISO (this stranger)
The aperture is namely the diameter of the lens opening and is usually controlled by a sort of iris. It works like your pupils that are dilated in a dark room but immediately contract under bright light. The larger the aperture, the more light reaches the image sensor. Aperture is expressed as F-stop (e.g. F2.8 or f/2.8). A smaller F-stop number corresponds to a larger lens opening and aperture.
The shutter speed can range from a thousandth of a second up to 30 seconds or even more. When you use fast shutter speeds, the image sensor is exposed for only a small amount of time, and vice versa. As you can see from the table below, these two factors are inversely related, but different combinations give the same result.
Shutter speed (in seconds)
|
1/500
|
1/250
|
1/125
|
1/60
|
1/30
|
Aperture (in F-stops)
|
2,8
|
4
|
5,6
|
8
|
11
|
Watch out! You must use a tripod when using slow shutter speeds. Otherwise, the flickering of your hands will make your photograph appear blurry. Just remember that to take a clean picture with bare hands, the slowest shutter speed you can set is 1/30 of a second. Unless you are a professional photographer with a very steady hand!
A third way to control exposure is by adjusting the ISO – basically the sensitivity of the sensor. The higher the ISO value, the higher the sensitivity to light. High ISO values are usually used for "night photography" due to the lack of light in such conditions.
The "bucket analogy"
There is a very useful tool on the display of modern digital cameras. I’m used to calling it the best friend of photographers – the exposure meter. It consists of a little axis ranging between +3 and –3. The upper limit corresponds to an overexposed (too bright) image and the lower one is evidence of an underexposed (too dark) picture. Guess what the exposure meter will show for a correctly exposed shot? Zero, exactly. This is what you have to check every time when setting the parameters and before pressing the shutter release button.
When I first learned about photography in high school, I found it really helpful to think about the "bucket analogy" (The Exposure Triangle). In order to collect the same amount of water, you have to control three variables:
- Aperture, namely the strength of rain
- Shutter speed, namely the exposure time to rain
- ISO, namely the width of the bucket
 | If the aperture is unchanged, a shorter exposure requires a higher ISO. |
 | If the exposure is unchanged, a larger aperture requires a lower ISO. |
 | If the ISO is constant, a smaller aperture corresponds to a longer exposure. |
Obviously, when shooting with your smartphone, a built-in software will automatically adjust all these parameters for you. But what is the sake of letting a machine do all the work? I feel it’s worth making an effort. Especially when the pictures that you are taking will become permanent memories for the rest of your life.
Half science, half art
This is just the fundamentals of photography, what every photographer – amateur or professional – must know. Once you become skilled with the technical aspect of the discipline, the rest is up to your creativity. The most important tool for mastering photography is your mind.
The beautiful images are everywhere, even when the places or the situations do not seem interesting. You only have to capture them. Getting the mind used to seeing and looking beyond the ordinary in everyday life is a first step in this direction. This is why you need to practice. This is why you need to free your imagination and look at things as if you were seeing them for the first time, just like a child would do.
___
Chrono-photography is a photographic recording of a movement, action or other phenomena, which consists of a series of still pictures taken at regular intervals during the action.
A star trail is a type of photograph that uses long-exposure times to capture the apparent motion of stars in the night sky due to the rotation of the Earth.
Panning is a photography technique performed through capturing an object in motion while moving the camera in parallel to the object. By moving the camera together with the object, the object remains sharp and the background becomes blurred.
Works Cited:
- Gaucheraud, Hyppolite. "Fine Arts. The Daguerotype." The Literary Gazette; and the Journal of the Belles Lettres, Arts, Sciences, Etc., 12 Jan. 1839
- Guadagnini, Walter. Fotografia. Zanichelli, 2000.
- Silva, Jorge. “Photography Isn't Dead After All, Says Salgado.” Reuters, Thomson Reuters, 10 Feb. 2017, www.reuters.com/article/us-photo-salgado/photography-isnt-dead-after-all-says-salgado-idUSKBN15P1HM.
- “The Exposure Triangle - A Beginner's Guide.” Photography Life, Photography Life, photographylife.com/what-is-exposure-triangle.
Excellent article, I love taking photography and this article reinforces a lot of concepts i've used in the past. Such an interesting read. I will be using a lot of these tips in the near future (well once I get a phone) to take some excellent shots!
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