Near & Far Post Assignment

The Near & Far Assignment was quite a challenge. One of the biggest obstacles for me was finding a good landscape. I don't have my license so I can't drive to a landscape in Gloucester without making my mom be willing to drive me there. This makes my options for landscapes limited, which is why two out of the three are actually from Gloucester High School. Another difficult thing was getting the greatest depth of field while making he entire picture focused. It was difficult to focus on the thing int he middle and still get a crystal clear picture. I took a lot of photos for this assignment but most of them are not quite what I was hoping for. Here are three of the photos I took for this landscape assignment.

Near & Far Pre-Assignment

This assignment is based on Ansel Adams (who I've previously written about earlier on my blog). The pictures we take are supposed to be landscapes with greater depth of field than normal. To do this, the camera must be on aperture priority, on the second highest aperture. The ISO can be low if it's a sunny day. The point of these pictures is to get the greatest distance with the greatest amount of clarity and detail. To do this, you need to pick three objects, one close, one in the middle and one far away. If you focus on the object in the middle, you will get the greatest depth of field. I have already taken some landscape pictures from the High School, but I am going to continue shooting at different areas if I can, to get some variety.

5 Rules of Composition

1.) Rule of Thirds
2.) Leading Lines
3.) Patterns
4.) Frame
5.) Fill the Frame

Book Assignment

1.) Photography Speaks:150 Photographers on their art
By- Brooks Johnson
Published By: Aperture Foundation, Inc. 2004
2.) Nonfiction Photography
By- Bunar Alexanian
Published By- Walker Creek Press
3.) A life in Photography
By- Edward Steichen
Published By: Doubleday & Company, Inc. 1963
4.) Weegee
By- Aperture Magazine
Published by- Aperture Foundation Inc, 1978
5.) Alfred Stieglitz: An American seer
By- Dorothy Norman
Published By- Aperture Biography, 1990
6.) Photography Reborn: Image making in the Digital Era
By- Jonathan Lipkin
Published By- Harry N. Abrams Inc. 2005
7.) Eisenstaedt's Giude to Photography
By- Alfred Eisensaedt
Published By- Viking Press 1978
8.) Paul Strand
By- Aperture Magazine
Published By- Aperture Foundation, Inc. 1987
9.) Eugene Atget
By- Aperture Magazine
Published By- Aperture Foundation, Inc. 1980
10.) Scenic Photography 101
By- Kerry Drager
Published By- Amphoto Books, 1999
11.) Ansel Adams
By- ?
Published BY- the Friends of Photography, 1984
12.) This is the American Earth
By- Ansel Adams & Nancy Newhall
Published By- Sierra Club, 1968]13.) The Americans
By- Robert Frank, Jack Kerouac
Published by- Steidl, 2008
14.) Black and White Photography: Basic Manual
By- Henry Horenstein
Published By- Little Brown & Co. 2005
15.) Men at Work
By- Lewis W. Hine
Published by- Dover Publications, 1977
16.) In Real Life: Six Women Photographers
By- Leslie Sills
Published By- Holiday House, 2000
17.) Other Realities
By- Jerry Uelsmann
Published By- Bulfinch Press, 2007
18.) The Photograph
By- Graham Clarke
Published By- Oxford University Press, 1997
19.) Photography Encyclopedia
By- Fred W McDarrah & Gloria S. McDarrah
Published By- Schirmer Books, 1999
20.) An Autobiography: Richard Avedon
By- Rochard Avedon
Published By- Random House Inc, 1993

Minor White

Minor White was born on July 9, 1908 in Minneapolis, Minnesota and earned his degree at the University of Minnesota in 1933. From there, White was originally a writer who then moved to Portland, Oregon in 1938 and joined the Oregon Camera Club. He spent two more years learning about photography at Columbia University. From 1946-1953 White served as the head of the photography department at the California School of Fine Arts in San Francisco. He co-founded the magazine, Aperture in 1952 with Ansel Adams, Dorothea Lange, and Barbara Morgan; and edited the magazine until 1975. White was known for his ideas of spiritual photography and still famous even years after his death in 1976.

Edward Weston

Edward Weston was a highly influential photographer who changed the techniques of 20th century photography. He was known for taking pictures with high amounts of detail and his pictures were usually from the American West since he lived in California. He started his photography business in 1911 opening his studio called Little Studio in Tropico. He was also one of he founders of the group f/64 along with Willard Van Dyke and Ansel Adams.









All of his pictures have very high detail in them and precise shadings of black and white. I really like his close ups of the vegetables because you don't see that detail in them every day, your eyes just skim over that. But when it's presented in front of you, you really notice the immense detail.