My Camera Explored

The Sony Alpha 200

At the moment my camera is a Sony alpha 200 and I recommend it for beginners. I will be exploring all the types of settings and explaining them.

Here is a picture of my camera. My lens at the moment is 3.5-5.6/18 - 70. It takes Compact Flash cards.

The settings of the camera are:

• Auto - Does everything automatically (the focus, aperture, shutter speed etc).

• No Flash-Doesn't make a flash when a picture is being taken.

• Portrait-Blurs away background, sharpens subject and makes skin tones soft.

• Landscape-Shoot the entire range of scenery in sharp focus with vivid colours.

• Macro-Shoot close subjects such as flowers, insects or small objects and achieves clear sharp focus.

• Sport-Captures moving subject outdoors or in bright places.

• Sunset-Captures the red of the sunset.

• Night time-shoot portraits at night and night scenes without loosing a dark atmosphere of the surroundings.

• Manual-Allows the user to shoot with the desired amount of each setting.

• Shutter priority-Use a quick shutter speed to capture an instant of the moment. Use a slow shutter speed to shoot a trailing image of the moving subject.

• Aperture priority-Opening the aperture narrows the range that is in focus. closing the aperture widens the range that is in focus.

this picture wwas taken with a low aperture.

 This picture was taken with a high aperture.

Here is a picture of the aperture setting. This is what is inside the camera and controls how much light is let in.

• Programme-Makes use of the automatic exposure mode while keeping the custom setting for ISO sensitivity, creative style and D-range optimizer.

Other settings on the Sony a200:

• Self timer-Either 2 seconds or 10 seconds.
• Flash-Automatic, manual and no flash.
• Exposure- Exposure is the total density of light allowed to get into the camera at the instant the photo is being taken.  
• ISO-ISO measures the sensitivity of the image sensor.
• Drive Mode-Continuous and Single
• AEL-Automatic Exposure Lock
• Super Steady Shot-Tells the user how much camera shake there is.

Sophie Calle

Sophie Calle Research

Sophie Calle is a French photographer but is more of an artist who was born in 1953 and has a more conceptual approach. Her work is about human venerability and examines identity and intimacy. She is recognised for her detective like ability to follow people and goes into their private life.



She has done lots of photography projects Which almost all involve an idea behind it so that the viewer has the full experience of the photo. Such as her project called...
The Blind

In this project She interviewed 22 blind people and asked them what was their definitions of beauty are. She then took a picture of what they said, put it next to a picture of them and then put a quote of what they said. One blind person said, 'In the Rodin museum there is a naked woman  with very erotic breasts and a terrific ass. She is sweet, she is beautiful.' Here is the picture of the person, the quote and the picture of beauty.

I like this project because it is interesting to see what they would find beautiful because the things that we see, some everyday, are beautiful such as one person says they love the colour green because when anyone tells him something is nice it would be green like trees and grass but we take seeing these things for granted.

The Shadows

Another project is called the shadow, which also has story behind it. Sophie got her mum to pay a private investigator to follow Sophie. She then went to places with meaning to her but looked like ordinary places to the investigator, for example the park where she had her first kiss. She looked at the photos after and none of them had her face in it and her figure looked like a shadow and so she called the project this.

I like this idea because it shows us that places that have meaning to us cannot be figured out by anyone else. It is interesting to see what the investigator will think of the places that she went. To someone else it looks like an ordinary day but too her it has meaning.

Take Care of yourself

This project started of with an email from her boyfriend saying that he was dumping her and the last words were take care of yourself. Here is the letter.

Because he wrote an email  instead of saying this to her face she started creating things like crosswords saying all the different words about their relationship and the break up. Here is the crossword.



She also got a people to analyse the letter, she got a grammarian to read out the grammar and a psychologist to tell her what the man was feeling and thinking when he wrote this.

I don't like this work because it is more based around her and her boyfriend. I like the idea of it but I think it is mostly for revenge and a lot more personal than her other work and so I don't feel comfortable in reading the letter and judging her boyfriend. We don't know enough about the situation as it is only her side of the story.

The Hotel

This project was about what type of things people had in a hotel room. Sophie Calle got a job in a hotel as a maid and so she go into rooms in the hotel. She then used this to get into peoples rooms while they were away to take photos of what was inside their bags and other things. she photographs the momentarily unoccupied hotel rooms: she photographs the unmade or never slept in beds, the stray items left in bathrooms, the contents of suitcases and closets; she reads letters left lying in the open, takes photographs of the guests, and does even more.

I like this idea because we can see what the people who are staying there are like even though we haven't met them.

The Address book

In this project, she found an address book on the floor and so she photocopied it before giving the original back to the owner. She then looked at the people in the phone book and phoned them up so that they could give an interview about this man. She would then write down what they said and put it into a newspaper article which was to be read by the owner. One day he realised that the article was about him and so he sued her. He then went on to hire a private investigator who found some naked photos of Sophie Calle and he wanted to put them in a newspaper.  Here is the picture of an article which was in the newspaper.

I like this idea because like her previous work it tells us about the person yet we haven't met them. It is  also good because she found it and had the imagination to come up with an idea about it which I thought was very clever.

Overall I think Sophie Calle is a good photographer and has very interesting projects. On the other hand her projects are very intimate and I don't feel comfortable reading them because it is giving us an insight into people's lives without them knowing.

Shutter Speed and Aperture

Shutter Speed and Exposure Aperture

In this experiment I will be adjusting the shutter speed and aperture settings on my camera to find out the effect of them on my photos. In these pictures the first letter is for the shutter speed: L is long shutter speed and H is a short shutter speed. The second letter is for aperture: L is for low aperture and H is for high aperture. I moved the light at about the same speed so the experiment should be fair. I used the same shutter speeds for the two photos each: 30 seconds and 1/100. I also used the same aperture for the two photos each so that I could compare them equally: F5.6 and 36.

This photo is very clear because it has a long shutter speed so it captures all the movements of the light and a low aperture so that the light is bright. The camera even caught the movements inbetween and after because of the low aperture. This is the best picture of the lot because it shows the letters clearly.

 This photo isn't clear because it has a high aperture and so didn't capture much of the light. It shows clearly were I stopped the light becuase I spent longer holding the light there and so it made it brighter.

 This photo was with a short shutter speed and low aperture and so I couldn't move the light to make a H and a L. The camera captures the light and shows it clearly but the short shutter speed meant I couldn't do anything with the light.

 This picture was with a short shutter speed and a high aperture and so I couldn't move the light around and the camera didn't make the light bright enough to be seen.

All of these photos underneath were taken with a high exposure and a long shutter speed to show what wonderful things we can do with these settings and light. I can write words.

 Make shapes.

And be in three places at once.

To get this photo, I pressed the shutter, stood to the right and shone a light on my face. I then turned the light off, took a step backwards and turned the light back on. I repeated this step once more. Because I shone a light on my face, the light also shone onto the wall and so the wall is seen on the photo. I didn't keep the light on my face for long because I would have run out of time to get all three. This meant that I look ghostly and almost see through.

I enjoyed doing this project because it was interesting to see what different things that I could do with this project. It has taught me about shutter speed and aperture and the possibilities that can happen with them.  

Elliott Erwitt

Elliott Erwitt Research

Elliott Erwitt is a documentary and advertising photographer who was born in 1928. He is known for his black and white shots of ironic and absurd situations within everyday settings.



 Erwitt served as a photographer's assistant in the 1950s in the United States Army while stationed in France and Germany. The Director of the Farm Security Administration's photography department, hired Erwitt to work on a photography project for the Standard Oil Company. Erwitt then began a freelance photographer career and produced work for magazines. He offes some very fuunny ideas into human behavour. Such as this photo. All the en are looking at the naked woman in the painting but the one woman is on her own looking at the other pianting of the dressed woman.

 I like Elliott Erwitt because he takes photos of people and they don't know he's there and so we get an insight into what they are really like. There is no posing for the camera or changing their expression because they don't know he's taking a photo. We can see what people are really like.

Martin Parr

Martin Parr research

Martin Parr is a British documentary photographer who was born in 1953.  He is known for his photographic projects that take a critical look at aspects of modern life, in particular provincial and suburban life in England.







Martin takes a step back and looks at things from a different angle and then takes a picture of it. He takes pictures of what we all do but then he portrays it as weird. This is shown by some of his pictures such as these ones.

In this photo all the people look funny because the photo is taken from a different angle, yet we all would do the same if we were there.

In this picture the man is taking a picture of something else when there is an amazing photo opportunity behind him.

I like Martin Parr because he takes funny photos but we relate them to ourselves. He makes us look at all the bizarre things we do and then we laugh at them. We could however take it the wrong way because some people could be offended. 

Bruce Gilden

Bruce Gilden Research

Bruce Gilden is a street photographer who was born in 1946. His most famous work is when he went to New York. He got into photography by Michelangelo Antonioni's film blow up. After this he got a camera and went to night classes. He was fascinated with normal people on the street and the idea of visual spontaneity, so Bruce turned to a career in photography.

Bruce Gilden

Bruce Gilden sometimes uses a flash to alert the people around him that he is there. Not many other street photographers do this because they think it ruins the picture if the subject is looking at the camera. Bruce said that he was fascinated by the duality and double lives of the individuals he photographed.

His Photos





I like Bruce Gilden because he takes upfront pictures of people and so you can see all the details of the subject. It's giving us an insight into the different cultures of the places he goes to such as when he went to Haiti, he photographed their beliefs and voodoo rituals which the Haitians did. Another example is when he went to New York you could See by his photos most people were rushing. 

Exploration and Discovery visual brainstorm

Exploration and discovery.

Key Words for Exploration:

• Searching
• Checking
• Examining
• Investigate
• Look
• Hunting
• Inspecting

 Key Words for Discovery:

• Finding
• Uncover
• Find Out
• Learn
• Realize
• Reveal
• Uncover

Searching for a good photo and then finding a good photo.

If you don't explore then you won't discover.
Exploring and discovering the unknown universe.


Looking and finding what the universe is like.
Exploring and finding a different style of photography.



This is a photo by a photographer called Stephen Gill who explored putting objects inside his camera and then taking a picture of something.

Exploration and Discovery in photography

Exploration: Looking for something that is unknown. This could be trying out a different type or style of photography no-one has done before.
Examples
     Roger Mayne: He is known for his social documentary street photographs of London in the late 1950s. His emphasis in the Southam Street series is upon the life and energy of children and young people, against their decaying urban environments. He has also made a photographic chronicle of his family and is known for his contributions to the Shell Guide to Devon.
 He was the first to explore this style of photography and others have followed in his footsteps such as Bruce Gilden

Discovery: Finding something that is unknown.
Discovery could be finding a different type or style of photography.
  Maud Sulter: She is a poet, historian teacher and artist working with installation, photography and video. Born of Scots and Ghanain parentage, her work addresses issues of the representation of black women in Western culture. Her series Zabat, is a cycle of studio portraits of creative black women, each representing one of the nine muses of classical antiquity.