‘From that Moment Onwards…’

Project 1 – The Instrument

Exercise 1.1 – The Instrument

Brief

Take three or four exposures of the same scene. Don’t change anything on the camera and keep the framing the same.

Preview the shots on the LCD screen. At first glance they look the same, but are they? Perhaps a leaf moved with the wind, the light changed subtly, or the framing changed almost imperceptibly to include one seemingly insignificant object and exclude another. Time flows, the moment of each frame is different, and, as the saying has it, ‘you can’t step into the same river twice’.

Now bring up the histogram on the preview screen. The histogram is a graphical representation of exposure – the camera’s sensitivity to light. As you page through the images you can see small variations in the histograms. Even though the pictures look
the same, the histogram data shows that in a matter of seconds the world changes, and these subtle differences are recorded by the camera. If you refine the test conditions – shooting on a tripod to fix the framing, moving indoors and closing the curtains to exclude daylight – still the histogram changes. Probably some of the changes are within the camera mechanism itself; still, the camera is a sensitive enough instrument to record them.

Add the sequence to your learning log with the time info from your camera’s shooting data as your first images for Part One.

(Bloomfield, 2018)

Initial Response

After reading the brief, I am eager to do a shoot for this exercise. I want to see the difference in the images I take and to study the histogram to get some sort of understanding of its job. I feel that this exercise is very interesting as it uses graphs in photography, which you may not expect and gives a deeper insight to photography, instead of just taking photos.

Mind Map

You can view my first ideas here: Mind Map – The Instrument

Shoot Plan

For this shoot, I am going to set my camera to auto, and I am going to shoot the same object four times, as stated in the brief. I am going to use a tripod for my shoot, to steady my camera so that it doesn’t move, so the histogram really shows the difference in the images. In this shoot I will be using my 50mm lens to take the images. I will use a plant for this, as it was one of the first objects to come into my head.

Image 1

Screen Shot 2018-10-05 at 12.22.52

Image 2

Screen Shot 2018-10-05 at 12.31.30

Image 3

Screen Shot 2018-10-05 at 12.37.21

Image 4

Screen Shot 2018-10-05 at 12.53.03

Aperture, ISO, Shutter Speed

Image 1,2,3,4 –

Aperture: 3.2
ISO: 1600
Shutter Speed: 1/160

Reflection

I really enjoyed doing this first little exercise. If I was to explore this area further I think I would do another shoot showing drastic changes over a longer period. If I did a moving object this would show the histogram with more drastic changes too and also if I did the shoot outside and of a different object the histogram would be very different to my shots of the plant pot inside which is very basic. Overall, I think the shoot went well and I completed what was expected from the exercise brief. Now on to the next one!