Julia Margaret Cameron

       Julia Margaret Cameron was a British photographer well known for her portraits usually of celebrities of that time. She started taking photographs when she was around the age of 48 when her daughter gave her a camera as a present. Starting her photography Carree where just after a year she became a member of the Photographic Societies of London and Scotland. Cameron was born in Calcutta India. She was considered an ugly duckling compared to her sisters and other well known celebrities in her family. Such as her great niece Virgina Woolf who said this when asked about her aunt. "wrote in the 1926 introduction to the Hogarth Press collection of Cameron's photographs, "In the trio [of sisters] where...[one] was Beauty; and [one] Dash; Mrs. Cameron was undoubtedly Talent"." ( look to the bottom of the page for the link to the website where all my information was collected at). Cameron was then married in 1838 to Charles Hay Cameron a man twenty years her Senior. He was also a jurist and member of the Law Commission stationed in Calcutta.

      Since Cameron's sister ran a scene for the artistic in Little Holland House Cameron had access to very famous people of the age. People like Charles Darwin, George Frederic Watts, and Ellen Terry all got their portraits done by Cameron. Cameron also did posed pictures which looked like oil paintings. In these paintings Cameron never hid the background even if the person she was depicting in her photograph was supposed to be a literary work.

       Here is some of her work I found breathtaking!

Pictures:

http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=Julia+Margaret+Cameron+Photography&Form=IMGCOL&col=79ec4cd960795f13d355

Information:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_Margaret_Cameron

Henri Cartier-Bresson

Bresson is well known for his "Street Photography". Bresson was born on August 22nd in 1908 in Sein-et-Marne at Chanteloup. By 1923 he developed an interest in painting and certain parts of Surrealism where he studied under Andre' Lhote. In 1931 he started to really focus on photography. By 1935 Bresson was in New York experimenting with film with Paul Strand. Bresson as then working on a few shows until 1940 when he was taken prisoner by the Germans. He later escaped in1943 where he took pictures artists and writers and was a part of an organization called MNPGD which helped people who escaped or were at one time prisoners. After in 1944-1945 he was working as a part of a team called photographs the Liberation of Paris which was a documentary on on the prisoners of war and detainees. As his life goes on Bresson continues with his photography until 1974 where he starts to concentrate on his drawing. As the later years of his life are focused on his drawing art he dies peacefully on August 3rd 2004 in Montjustin, Provence

Someone who really understood what it is Henri Cartier-Bresson was doing in his art is
Zorkikat who wrote the qote below which just sums Street Photography up so nicely.
      "The common misconception is that street photography is so simple that there is no need to set rules for it. A lot of people with cameras (as opposed to true photographers :) ) think that the 'street' is the genre for them, after perhaps encountering failures and frustrations in other photographic genre like portraiture, still life, or even landscape where there seem to be a lot of "rules". The notion that the street is open, spontaneous, and non-static leads to the belief that the photography used in it should be as 'free' as well- no rules, no standards, and even no composition or graphic consideration!
"Finding one's voice" is difficult if that voice cannot speak in a manner that is comprehensible. Doing nothing but trial and error will lead to hits or misses- more misses likely. And of the hits, they can be best described as accidental: the creator had little to do with it, and thus he is unlikely to recreate the 'success' which his unintended hit had, if he had no grip on its method of creation in the first place."

Here are some of Bresson's work

Here are some links where I got my information:

http://erickimphotography.com/blog/2011/08/22/10-things-henri-cartier-bresson-can-teach-you-about-street-photography/

 http://www.henricartierbresson.org/hcb/HCB_bio08_28_en.htm

Post Shutter Speed Priority

       For my shutter speed priority pictures I was fortunate to have some people jump in my photograpghy class. The hardest part of this assignment was to get the person in motion without getting them blurry and having all hands and feet in the frame. When we were trying the flying or levitating I was having trouble finding the right angle to shoot up from in order to make my subject appear to be flying or floating.

Shutter Speed Priorty

Shutter speed priority is when you take a picture of an moving object. Which is the objective of this assignment. In order to get your subject in the position you want you have to set your camera to multiple or continuous shooting. This can be done on most cameras on the arrow pad. You can also change your ISO and White balance in the same location just a different arrow.

Always make sure you check your white balance and ISO. If it is sunny you might use at the most a ISO of 400 and have a sunny white balance. If you are taking a picture on a cloudy day then you would normally want a higher ISO and a white balance that is for cloudy days. That Is the usual but that does not mean that it is set in stone. Don't be afraid to change your white balance to shade or your ISO a little higher or lower to fit your location and time of day.

    While taking shutter speed priority pictures you would not hold the camera still like with subjects that don't move. If your subject is running to the right then you want to first focus your camera at the middle and then turn your body with the camera fst enough to f\get the subject running stuck in a position without being blured.

If you have someone who is jumping and you want to catch them in mid air then you would want to be at a lower point then where they are jumping from andkeep the camera at a angle so they appear to be floating. You do not move the camera for this type of picture.

Up Close Post Imogene Cunningham

During this assignment we were focusing on an object up close while bluring out the background. I noticed that for me personally I prefered the up close photograph style so I enjoyed this immensely. I do believe that I am getting better at figuring out what my ISO has to be at and what my white balance should be placed at. Here are some of the up close pictures that I took please tell me how they came out.



Extra Pictures

Here is where I will put any pictures I take that I don't really have an assignment for.



Alfred Stieglitz Pre-Assignment

     Alfred Stieglitz was an American photographer who was born in Hoboken, New Jersey, in the year 1864. He was a student in germany until he returned to the states in 1890. His goal was to show people that photographs could have as much artistic expression as a painting or suculpture. He believed that photography did not need to be put in to a box that dictated that photographs had only to be about war or to capture a time in history but could be works of art that could be displayed for enjoyment.
   While in the states Stieglitz was an editor for a journal by the name of Comera Notes of Camera Club.The whole association was made up of amature photographers enthusiasts who also believed in Stieglitz's oppinion of photography. When the Camera Club began to become troubled by Stieglitz's restrictive editoral policies, Stieglitz and the other participants with the same mind left the Camera Club to start a group called the Photo-Secession in 1902. The group was mainly focused on every aspect involved in photography.
    Stieglitz was also an editor of a publication by the name Camera Work from 1902 to 1917. He also organized exhibitions with the help of Edward J. Steichen ( to learn more about this photographer look for a post labled Edward J. Steichen). As time progressed Stieglitz and his associates changed their view on photography and showed support for photographers such as Paul Strand (for more on Paul Strand look to Earlier post) and charles Sheeler who helped to make the new approach to photography more solid in the art community. As his feelings changed Stieglitz even changed the feel in his photographs. Such as his much celebrated portrait of Georgia O' Keefe. Keefe was once one of his photo subject between 1917 and 1925. Hundreds of pictures were taken of the painter Keefe who later, in 1924, became his wife.
    Much like many modern ideas at the time Stieglitz refused to present a single image of his wife with her whole personality because it was widley believed that a personality just like the outside world is always changing and should not be put on hold just because the camera, or new instruments were invented. Leaving people with the relization that a photograph is as much an expression of the photographer's feelings for the subject of the photo as they are a reflection of the subject depicted.
    In Stieglitz final decades of his life he devoted most of his time to running his gallery Anderson Galleries, 1921-25, The Intimate Gallery, 1925-29, An American Place,1929-46. His Looking Northwest from the shelton photographs taken out of his gallery window making Alfred Stieglitz the most significant figure in American Photography.