Experimenting with exposure

In photography exposure is a term that refers to the light that reaches the film and makes an image. To create a rich photo with realistic tones, dark and detailed shadows, and bright delicate  highlights, you need to properly expose your film. This involves understand three main things: how shutter speed and aperture work together to control the amount of light allowed to reach the film, the ISO rating of your film (speed), how to meter the light and set the camera control accordingly. Personal judgement is important even if your camera can set the exposure automatically because equipment is set for "average" conditions, and usually scenes don't have "average" conditions. One of the best cures for exposure issues is experience. Even nice light meters and cameras with exposure strategy can't replace the confidence experience can give you. Before making an exposure take a moment to visualize how you want your final print to look. You can decide in the tonal value of the important area in your final photo. You can chose how light or dark a specific area will appear by adjusting the exposure by the meter reading. Less exposure will make an average dark, darker than middle gray. For example if you wanted a very dark or black subject to appear rich and dark with complete texture expose it two stops less than what the meter reads. Changing the exposure affects all the values in the print no just the tones you meter. I hope everyone finds this helpful! It's short but detailed. If you have any question or request feel free to comment!

Understanding the effects of your lighting

Lighting is very important when taking a photography, but its more important that you know how to use the light. Understanding the change in light, direction it's coming from and how the lighting can make a photographs mood. When you're shooting outdoors and clouds darken the sky, you change position so that you subject is lit from behind, or you move from a brightly lit spot to a more shady one will all result in a different looking photograph. If you make a point to look at the lighting on your subject you'll soon be able to predict what kind of feel it can give to it. The direction of light is important because of shadows, mainly those that are visible to the camera. Light cast shadows that can emphasize or diminish the texture and volume of your subject. When you look at the lighting on a scene you need to take in account both the direction of the light and the position of the camera. A safe thing to do is to stand with the light over your shoulder making the entire subject evenly lit, however this can often be a boring front lighting. Compare lighting positions like front lighting with side and back lighting and notice the change in visible shadows. Before you shoot take a second to think about other ways positions will effect the lighting and the look this will have with your subject. There is never any harm in taking photos of all the different options and deciding which you are more pleased with. Experiment with different lighting and settings to become familiar with the effects it has on your shot. When shooting out doors remember that a clear, sunny day makes bright highlights and dark hard edged shadows, while on an overcast day at dusk or in the shade will create a soft more diffused light. These are key things to get comfortable with, but are not the only things that lighting can do.

Danielle Nash's photostream

Danielle Nash's photostream on Flickr.

Artistic Criticism

One thing that comes with being an artist is an abundance of criticisms. This can be a very helpful thing to artist who are looking to get feedback about their work and how they can improve it. However, it seems that artist now have lost the ability to write a formal art analysis and critique. This is a very important tool to have, it not only lets you express in a well written way what you enjoy about a piece but also how you think the artist can improve their artwork. Before I dive right into how to write a proper art critique I thought you might like to know what exactly it is first.

Art criticism is responding to, interpreting meaning, and making critical judgments about specific works of art. Art critics help viewers perceive, interpret, and judge artworks. When we think of criticism we tend to have a negative perception on it, however this is not completely rational. Although the media critics do not give a good name to criticism there is a way to have helpful critiques about one's work without losing all self-esteem. 

There are a few different ways to to write a formal analysis to explain a work of art. The ones I tend to gravitate toward the most are:

1. Description: A pure description of the object focused on in the art without actual analysis or interpretation of the piece. Simple answering the question "What do you see?" and stating the medium, form of art, size and scale of the work, element and general shapes, description of color scheme, texture, and the original location and date of the piece. 
2. Analysis: Determining what features suggest and deciding why the artist used the features to convey a certain idea. Answers the question "How did the artist do it?", determine the subject matter through the title, selection of most distinct features, analysing principles of design and composition, discussing how elements and structure contribute to art, use of light and role of color, treatment of space and landscape, portrayal of movement and how its used, effects of medium used, and the perception of balance proportion and scale, final reaction to the art. 
3. Interpretation: Establishing broader context for art. Answers the question " Why did the artist create it, and what does it mean?" looking at various elements that make up the piece, the main idea(overall meaning), interpretive statement( can the artworks meaning be expressed in a single sentence?), evidence(what evidence supports my interpretation?) 
4. Judgement: Giving a work a rank in relation to other works and its originality. Is it a good piece of art? What criteria is more appropriate for judging the work.  What evidence relates to each criterion? Based on eveidance and criteria what is the overall judgement of the quality of the piece? 

Artist Guide to Achieving More

This is where I will be posting bits and pieces of things that I think will help other photographers and artist of all levels. On this page you can comment on what you'd like to see posted and how the posts have helped you better you artistic skills. My goal for this page is to bring artist from all walks of life together and have a creative environment where you can share your work and things that you've found helpful within and outside this blog. I want to have a community in a sense where everyone is trying to encourage and help one another to find and harness the artistic potential we all posses.

The first thing I'll be posting is fundamentals of art, hopefully giving you a better understanding or the elements and principles of art and visual art. With a good foundation art can be taken to new and beautiful levels.

Calling all Artist

I had an idea. No matter how well experienced you are you can never stop learning. I love to learn, teach, and help others learn. I came to a conclusion that I would create a blog or use this one as a helpful place for all artist to learn and increase their artistic skills. No matter what medium one uses or the style that is trying to be obtained I feel that a few helpful post on a variety of fundamentals to DIY's would be beneficial to everyone who aspires to better their skills. I am very open and invite any suggestions or questions and will do my absolute best to help anyone that comes to this blog. I'm not quite sure when it will officially be up and going but I am taking any ideas, suggestions, and request now. I would like to have a few post planned out before actually making the blog live on the internet so if anyone from my  DeviantArt, Flickr, or Bluecanvas page would like something posted about shot me a message and I will get right on it. I am very excited about this and cannot wait to help and watch artist of all kinds grow their skills. I'm not sure where this new endever may take me but I am sure I will recruit help from artist on the sites and I am currently on and brainstorm with a few of them to see what sounds like a plan for this new blog. I will continue to post on this one if I do not decide to make this the main blog for the helpful tips and DIY's I might add another page to it rather than create a whole new blog. It all really just depends. Tell me how you feel about it and what you would like to see on the art guide blog and what I can do to help you!

Finding Myself as an Artist

Over the last few days, I have struggled with something I never imagined to be so difficult. Finding myself as an artist has proven to be as hard as finding myself as a person. While finding myself as a person has taken as long as my whole life with more of the journey lying ahead, finding myself as an artist has just sprouted in recent years. It's a similar process, going through phases of opposite extremes, making mistakes and learning from them, to ultimately deciding who I want to be and what I am. Although finding myself as a person may seem like the biggest hurdle of my young life I think finding myself as an artist is equally important. Before I was out of elementary school I always knew that I would one day want to have a career that gave me the creative outlet I would love. As I have matured and grown older I still feel the same way but struggle in finding a happy medium between being able to do something I love and have a passion for, for the rest of my life, and doing something that will support me. I know understand the term "starving artist". Even though I may be good at expressing myself through art I might not get "discovered" until later in my life if at all. However, I've always had the dream to be an amazing artist and telling people stories of my life through that; I am the type of person who doesn't just dream, but chase after my dream to turn it into reality. With that being said, a couple of days ago I asked a friend of mine who is also a photographer how to get my work better know and was given a few art sharing sites that would help me. One of those sites being Deviant Art. I explored the site a while and eventually made an account on the 30th. In the 4 days I have been active on the site I have uploaded 285 photographs and had more pageviews than I would have ever imagined. Not just pageviews, but comments, favorites, and messages sent to me by other artist giving me an abundance of great helpful feedback. I didn't stop there however, I began to upload photos again on my Blue Canvas account and also made a Flickr. I haven't been as popular on the latter than I have been on Deviant Art but I am positive if I keep up regular posting on all 3 sites I will get the results I so desperately want. I'll add links to the bottom of this to all 3 of my profiles, in case there are others out the who read this and would like to see my profiles or join yourself. It's rewarding to post on a site where you know you are surrounded by others with a similar passion, and it is a great way to be inspired to continue and better the hobby one loves.   Deviant Art
Blue Canvas
Flickr