Friday, April 23, 2010

Lines, Lines, Lines! Its All Lines!

That's A Line! 
In photography, a technique of photography is to use lines to draw attention to the subject. Lines technique is a variation of the framing technique. This technique is commonly seen in many photography books. Again, people tend to find unnatural things in nature. If nature seems random (because it is), finding human-made arrangements would make it unusual. And unusual things are always good photography subjects. Sometimes, finding ordered things in human architecture always seem to catch one's attention. Again, my students took days looking for patterns and lines in nature and in surroundings. It appears that some got the clue, but some couldn't. 
This is an example of a classic line to nowhere (a road). Not a good shot but its a good example anyway. Taken by Krista Mae Villamor using Pentax Optio E10, with 1600 by 1200 pixel dimension.


The next photo is a tube and the wall going towards a classmate. A sepia enhanced picture (to enhance the mood). A better example of lines technique. Taken by Meshaq Dangel using my Cellphone camera! (320 x 240 pixel Samsung SGH-M610).


Below is a picture using a film-based Pentax Z-10 which is an SLR Camera. A really old camera but the mood made by the picture really affected me. At the height of a typhoon, a man, carrying half-sack of rice, braved the swaying bridge under which the water is rampaging just to bring his rice to his family. Its a great photojournalistic shot. Taken by Krista Mae Villamor and scanned using an HP-G1020 scanner. Lines direct the eyes to where the man is going



Monday, April 19, 2010

The Teacher's New "Camera"






So my students managed to give me really decent pictures while their teacher struggles to have a camera of his own uses his own laptop webcam that can take pictures. I used the camera to take pictures of them for my own class documentations. My students don't seem to ask me why I don't bring my own camera. If they do, I will tell them that its an expensive proposition (TRUE... because my brother lent/gave me his own SLR film-based camera which I am quite shy to bring to the school. Mind you, even newspaper photographers still use film-based SLR cameras). Somebody sold me a 3800 Php Samsung SGH-M610. A tiny slide-cellphone with a resolution of 320x240. Its so bad but I can use it anytime and anywhere. 



Anyway, the term camera, originated from the concept of camara oscura (Italian), literally a dark-box, in Latin its camera obscura, in French its called chambre obscure. Its no different from the pinhole camera that Physics teachers use to demonstrate light in Optics. This camara oscura is used by Visual Artists (Painters) to make accurate drawings of objects and people. So this SAMSUNG camera can take pictures too. I tried. So here are the results. These were the best shots I have taken so far.


The coconut silhouette was unexpected but the shadow shot was carefully composed. Others were composed too. They are not professional looking but they look good enough for me to post them.