“Smile”!
“Say `CHEESE’.”
How
often have you said or heard these words?
They're on the lips of most amateur photographers ready to
capture an image for posterity.
Not
only are the amateur’s words common, so is the inability of the
untrained to take good photographs.
To get the training needed to take better photos, it used to be
necessary pay a substantial fee to a professional photographer to
learn the tricks of the trade.
Now,
with the Internet, you can learn what the professionals know if you're
willing to spend the time researching the resources on the World Wide
Web.
This
wouldn't have been possible a couple of years ago when I first wanted
to do this article. My
research at that time brought up very thin pickings.
The increases of information on the Web during the past year or
two have been phenomenal. It's
now a great resource for photographers.
What
makes a photographic masterpiece?
The American Museum of Photography says,
"It might be a perfectly balanced still-life, bathed in
natural light. It might be a stirring portrait or a captured moment of
history or a sublime landscape. Great photographs can intrigue us,
astound us, mystify us, move us.”
Their exhibit, Masterworks
of Photography, exemplifies the artistry of 159 years of
outstanding photography.
Ansel
Adams was, without doubt, the greatest photographer of
the last century. His
finest collection, “...Not Man Apart,” which includes Adams'
photographs with poetic sketches by Robinson Jeffers, also deserves to
be available on the Web. This
is especially important because the book is now out of print with
limited copies available at Amazon
Books.
Meanwhile
a site that features a large number of Adam's photos can be viewed at Orazio
Centaro Art Images on the Web.
For
an interesting history of photography, from its beginnings until 1920,
you'll find comprehensive coverage of how photography developed, with
the significant people and processes involved at Leggat's
History of Photography page.
At
this point, it seems appropriate to mention a special event in the
history of photography--an exhibition called “The Family of Man”
at The New York Museum of Modern Art.
From
its premiere in 1955 in New York, The Family of Man broke all records
for attendances. In six versions, the exhibition started a world tour,
traveling through 69 countries and admired by over nine million
visitors. Unfortunately, the Family of Man exhibit has not yet
been digitalized, and very few of its entries are on the Web.
The
exhibit's developer, photographer Edward Steichen, said,
“Photography records the gamut of feelings written on the
human face--the beauty of the earth and skies that man has inherited;
and the wealth and confusion that man has created. It is a major force
in explaining man to man.”
The
Web has many resources for photographers.
One site, PhotoLinks,
with a free directory and portal service, provides easy access to as
many photographic resources as possible.
In addition to a gallery and featured artists, they have links
to hundreds of photographers' Web sites.
On
their resources page, Photolinks also has links to valuable tips and
techniques, including Basic and Intermediate Photography Techniques,
Digital Photography Techniques, Nature Photography, Printing and
Darkroom Techniques, Portraits, Children and Pets and Travel
Photography.
BJP
online is the Web edition of the British Journal of
Photography--the world's longest established weekly photo magazine,
published since 1854. They
have hundreds of pages of information for the professional
photographer. You
can register to use the entire site for free and receive any of three
free email newsletters.
The
Web features many sites devoted to special types of photography, like
landscapes, pets, flowers, portraits, weddings, children and many
others. To get to these
sites, type the specialty you're looking for, such as “landscape
photography”, into a search engine like Google.
For
those who do a fair amount of travel, one of these specialty
sites deserves mention: with
the assistance of author and photographer Jeff Wignall, Fodor's
has put together an invaluable guide to shooting great travel
pictures: Nearly 100 easy-to-follow tips, with accompanying photos,
covering every aspect of travel photography.
Foto
Info is a useful site if you're looking for more technical
information about things like color, filters, photographic materials
and developing film.
If
you'd like to find a place to ask questions and exchange ideas, The Journal
of Fine Art Photography has an online forum that you can join.
Their professed “goal is to present images and information to
thrill and inspire all of us who EAT, BREATHE, and SLEEP
photography.”
Photo
Seminars has an online campus with seminars and workshops. The seminars are free, and so is the first lesson in each of
the workshops. Enrolment
for access to all of the workshops costs $39.00 (BD 15.000).
Several
professional photographers think that traditional photography is a
thing of the past and will be replaced by digital photography. About
this new technology, the Internet
Brothers have written, “Film-less photographs, pictures on a
chip, scanned memories, call it what you will, digital photography is
a new phenomenon of technology that allows for instant
gratification.”
It's
possible, with a digital camera, to get the results of your photo
click without waiting to finish a roll of film and then carting it off
to a developer to wait some more. The Internet Brothers also provide
very useful information on how to produce good quality digital photos.
According
to some estimates, more than 3 million people will buy digital cameras
this year alone. This
last year digital cameras have outsold, for the first time ever,
film-based cameras.
Every
traditional camera manufacturer has forayed into making digital
cameras. Think of the advertising world, the printing industry,
newspapers, editorial industry, news media; they are all going
digital.
A
free online course on digital photography is available at Digital
Photography--the Textbook.
The course coverage of every aspect of digital photography is
exceptionally comprehensive. For the quality and quantity of
instruction offered by this course, you would have to pay a
professional photographer a very large fee.
Also
visit Short
Courses for free courses in digital photography.
At
the Digital
Photo Corner, Arthur Bleich tackles the major topic for digital
photographers to deal with--resolution.
He explains how to get the most out of the camera image and out
of the prints.
An
international juried
exhibit exploring new work created by artists who work with
cameras and computers has been put together by Bradley University.
Dennis
Curtin has put together a “Must See Digital Photography Gallery Sites”.
These are sites that lie mostly hidden, but have exceptionally
high quality imaging on them.
If
you'd like to have some beautiful wallpaper on your computer screen,
just go to Cyberpress
Publishing and download some of the digital images that can
grace your monitor with natural beauty.
There's
something more to photography than simply a man or woman with a
camera. Adams captured
that extra dimension that makes a great photographer when he said,
"Sometimes I do get to places just when God's ready to have
somebody click the shutter."
