Reading Bruce Barnbaum's: ‘The Art of Photography’

Exercises in learning to see light more accurately (Paraphrased)

• ‘Quickly frame a scene and determine the brightest and darkest spot within the frame.
• As you continue with this simple exercise, you sharpen your seeing immensely. You then realise you are seeing every aspect of a scene much more intensely.
• Next you can speculate what would happen under different lighting conditions. As you peruse the scene for the answer, you start to envision it under alternate conditions. You begin to understand how different lighting would affect the scene.

Light Determines Form

• Look carefully to see how light affects lines, forms, and the relationship between objects in a scene. You’ll see that light is the determining factor.
• As you grow to notice the visual changes objects assume under varied lighting conditions, you will become aware of how each type of light affects your feelings about an object. It is surprising how much more deeply you will understand the essence of things by studying the light that falls upon each one. You will discover changes of meaning with every change in lighting. This will reveal ways to interpret those objects most appropriately for the message you wish to convey.’

Bruce Barnbaum

‘The Art of Photography’ 2010 pp 70 – 74

I guess this is the first time I have read ‘deep down’ and been really affected by what is being spoken of. The above-quoted exercise came to mind in the last few days and is already changing the way I look at scenes. I suppose this is an example of how reading can develop the way we do photography (‘Writing with light’) for the better…

Light awareness: light through the day.

These are experimental photographs that show some aspects of light through the day. There are 4 twilight shots and the others are mid day. Whilst I have plenty of images taken at dawn, I have not included them as they were not taken within the scope of study of this assignment.

Light awareness: outdoors at night.

I was recently at the St Ethelburga's Centre in London, at a story-based workshop. Emerging into the night air after the day's activities, the following views impelled me to get my camera out...!

Light awareness: variety with a low sun.

I'm slowly getting my head around Assignment 4 - Light. I have been planning the overview of the work - and there's quite a bit of it! I'd just written a very rough list of the exercises in my notebook, in order to try and imprint them on my mind so that I would have them mentally to hand for when chances for photographs occur.  I looked out of the kitchen window and saw that the sun was going down fast - that linked into the project 'Through the day: variety with a low sun. So I jumped in the car and grabbed the following shots in town.

What is on my reading list at the moment?

• Three short guides:Mastering shutter speed / aperture / exposure
• The Photographer's Manifesto: Bill Hitz
• 70 Photography Lessons: Eric Dahlin
• A Lesser Photographer: CJ Chivers
• Notes on Photography: Jim Dollar
• History and Practice of the Art of Photography: Henry H Snelling
• Photography - A Very Short Introduction: Steve Edwards
• On Being a Photographer: Bill Jay and David Hurn
• 25 Lessons I've Learned about Photography...Life: Lorenzo

The above are all on my Kindle - my newly-acquired addiction! What I shall purchase in the forthcoming weeks will David Freeman's guide to the digital SLR and - more importantly - my tutor's recommendation: Art Theory - 1900 to 2000 and something.

Talking with the Tutor...

I had a bit of an 'epiphany' moment a couple of days ago. Wishing to explore a particular issue, I phoned him up. I'd never done this before. Never even thought to do so, come to that. What a connection! Suddenly there we were, chatting like old friends about all things photography.

The 'voice' behind the author of feedback to my assignments became real, human and humorous... We seemed to share quite a few points of view. The whole experience began to diminish the 'distance' in distance learning. I no longer felt alone in cyberspace with my OCA studies.

I must give thanks to Tracey, my mentor, for pushing me gently in this direction. Without her guidance overview and suggestions about how to commit and to progress, things might have been very different at this point.