Archive for Getting a bit philosophical

The white balance of your eyes…

People have been thinking about how we perceive the world since the dawn of time. You can go all the way to ancient philosophy, with Plato's Allegory of the Cave, for example, where Plato wonders whether if you never saw the 'real' world, whether you would know. Or, indeed, even care. The senses are curious, because how would you know whether you see the world the same as somebody else? To me, for example, the rainbow never really made much sense: Sure, it looks the way I have always seen it, but that doesn't mean it makes any sort of logical sense. How do I know, for example, that what I think of as 'red' isn't what the rest of the population sees as 'blue'. Of course, I've been pointing at colours and naming them since I was barely able to talk, so it's pretty well-ingrained that 'red' is 'red', and that 'orange' is 'orange'... But what if they aren't? Deep philosophy about the very core of colour theory aside, I know for a fact that I don't see the world the same as other people. Specifically, I know that what I see isn't the real truth, because both of my eyes are giving me a different impression. Yes, really. Two eyes, two realities I noticed many years ago that my eyes are subtly different from each other: My left eye has a 'colder' colour balance than my right eye. I've spent a bit of time experimenting, and it appears that there is about an 800 kelvin difference between the two. That means that if I look at the left photo with my left eye, and the right photo with my right eye, these two look identical: It's been a bit of a curiosity for me for a while, and a while ago, I tweeted about it. As a result, I got a pretty big response, with the vast majority of responders saying something along the lines of "omg, me too!". That got me to thinking... Seeing as both my eyes are different from each other, there's a 100% chance that one of them is 'incorrect'. On the other hand, there's nearly as big a chance that both my eyes are 'incorrect'. Of course, white balance can be measured objectively, but ultimately, as photographers, we make a subjective judgement call on how we want to white balance our photos. How can you test it? Honestly, I have no idea how you can test it scientifically - but I find it's most noticeable when I'm indoors, in medium-to-low light (presumably because my pupils will be bigger, but I have no physiological explanation for why this might be the case). Hold a hand in front of one eye, then move it to the other. You'll see the picture 'jump' slightly to the side, but if your eyes differ from each other, you'll also see the colour temperature change slightly. Have you done the test now? Swell - give us your results here, so I can see exactly how much of a freak I am, in the grand scheme of things :) n{democracy:80} So what does that mean to me as a photographer? Nothing, I think. There are ways you can correct for your colour vision, apparently (you can wear slightly tinted glasses or contacts, for example), but ultimately it makes very little difference: Your eyes are absolutely incredible at capturing light, and your brain can handle colour balancing perfectly fine most of the time. In fact, your eyes / brain combination is vastly superior in this respect than a camera / computer combo. I just think of it as a curiosity, and secretly, somewhere deep inside, I'm quite pleased that nobody in the whole world sees their surroundings exactly identically to what I do.

Read all of The white balance of your eyes… (17 comments so far)

What went wrong?

A good friend of me recently posted on a social media site that a recent photo shoot he had done had gone horribly wrong; sure, some of the photos came out all right, but none of them fulfilled the 'vision' he was hoping for from his shoot. It's heartbreaking when a lot of effort doesn't pay off - but all you can do is to chalk it up as a writing experience. Analyse what went wrong, and then don't do that again. It's a slow way of learning things, of course, but things learned the hard way are generally learned properly - so there is a bit of a silver lining after all. What can you do when you feel as if you're properly starting to get the hang of photography, but you still want to learn more? There's a simple trick you can use... And it really works, trust me.

Read all of What went wrong? (8 comments so far)

Taking photos for the future

A photo from 100 years ago is quaint, mysterious, and informative - partially because there aren't that many of them. Today, everyone has a camera, and everyone is taking photos - In the pub a few months ago, I was talking to a historian about photography, and about what photos taken today would mean to historians of the future. We've all got a string of iconic photos in our heads. The ones that capture a particular time, place, or event - for example the VJ Day celebrations in London that marked the end of the Second World War or the fall of the Berlin Wall. But have you ever considered what it is that makes a photograph historically valuable, or what you might need to do to take one of those photos? Says Daniela: "Haje and I were talking about this a while ago, and seeing as I'm a historian to whom he's taught an awful lot about photography, he thought I might have something to say about it. Turns out, I do..."

Read all of Taking photos for the future (10 comments so far)

The death of film photography

"When I was given my first digital camera, I thanked the giver politely and set it on a shelf—where it sat, growing dust, for two years. I simply had no use for it.", recalls John, a long-time Photocritic reader, who decided to share some of his thoughts about his (at first painful) transition from film to megapixels. Take it away John... Now, I have nothing against photography. Photos are great when you're eager to relive that once-in-a-lifetime trip to Thailand, or when the sight of the neighbour's bawling infant recalls you to the time your son crawled into your mother-in-law's lap with his nappy falling off his bum. But film cameras immortalise such special occasions just fine, so why bother with digital?

Read all of The death of film photography (19 comments so far)

Photographic treasure-hunt

Combine a good old-fashioned team-based treasure hunt with a photography competition, and you've got a recipe for success, right? Well, that's what I thought too, when I signed up to attend Shoot London, an event based out of the Tate gallery, organised by Shoot Experience, a company who organises these kind of events for public and corporate events. Sadly, it turns out that I'll probably give future Shoot Experience events a miss - to find out why, I spoke to another participant of the event...

Read all of Photographic treasure-hunt (3 comments so far)

Teaching yourself photography

Imagine, for a second, that you are a young person with a camera. There are other cameras in the world around you, and there are people who use those cameras, too, but nobody really knows what they are doing, nobody can teach you anything you don't already know, and the only tool you have in the world is the internet. All hope is lost ... Or is it? I was recently speaking to Elisa Longhitano, who found herself in the same situation. As she was telling me about how she was teaching herself photography, I found myself smiling, and wishing I had access to the internet back when I was learning. Either way, Elisa's story is a lovely reminder of the fact that all you need to do to learn the dark (well, technically, the perfectly gradient) art of photography, is to be curious, and just that little bit inventive...

Read all of Teaching yourself photography (14 comments so far)

The problem with microstock

We do an experiment with microstock, and discover that while I sold three times more photos, I earned 40 times less money from the micro stock sales than from a full-on agency - with the exact same photos on sale... The lesson? If you're a decent photographer, stay the hell away from micro-stock: The bigger agencies treat you better, pay you more, and actually make an effort to sell your photos on a bigger scale.

Read all of The problem with microstock (26 comments so far)

The death of photo journalism

"From this day, the painting is dead", Paul Delaroche exclaimed when he saw the first Daguerreotype in 1839. He turned out to be wrong about the bit about the art of painting being dead, but photography certainly had a profound impact on our way of life. As a matter of fact, as early as in 1900, it was said that "the daily press, advertisements, posters, scientific literature, the popular lecture, decoration, and now the kinetograph, not to speak of the coming colored photography, have all contributed what is probably slowly coming to be a new mode of pictorial thought" (Goldberg 1991, p16)

Read all of The death of photo journalism (7 comments so far)

Oi! You! No pictures!

A few months ago, I ran a story on how the UK government was trying to restrict public photography. It seems as if they're now playing the back-pedalling game in a big kind of way. Once the petition hit 60,000 signatures, the Prime Minister's office issued a statement which can be summarised into 'uh, no, we never intended these kinds of changes to be made'. What I really want to know: Do you have any stories of instances where people tried to stop you from taking photos? Leave a comment!

Read all of Oi! You! No pictures! (27 comments so far)

Prime lenses, and why you need one

So, you've got a SLR, do you? Smashing. You might have a kit lens, a tele-zoom, and a couple of flashes by now, and you're feeling pretty hot about yourself and your camera gear, are you? Well, good on you. But until you've got a decent prime lens, you haven't really lived. And I'm here to tell you why. Back in the infancy of photography, we never had anything but prime lenses. When you bought a camera body, you first of all buy a camera lens to go with it. A 50mm f/1.8 was pretty much the slowest lens you could buy as a starter kit.

Read all of Prime lenses, and why you need one (79 comments so far)