Another challenge for 2017 – to get off the auto function
of my camera! I followed an Instagram
rabbit hole and landed on Emma Davies’ ‘A Year with my camera’ (AYWMC)
and decided to try the challenge, though I don’t have a DLSR, but my point and
shoot is quite sophisticated – a Canon GX 7.
The aim of the challenge is to take photos of your daily life, not just the
big events, and learn to use your camera at the same time.
I did study photography in high school, including in my
final year (where I think it was my best or second best subject out of the 5 I
took in year 12). This was back in the
day where I actually processed film! The
skills I learned then, particularly about composition and framing, are still
relevant, but the technical side is long since obsolete.
The first step of AYWMC was to think about what kind of
photos I want to take for the year. This is the second year that Emma has run
the challenge, and last year’s included themes for each week to guide the
technical homework, but this year is up to the participant. My focus for the year is to capture images
that can immerse someone in my London life.
I used to love looking at the old pictures at my grandparents house. They travelled all over Asia for my pa’s job,
and there were some great pictures of food, and the sights, and my grandma
enjoying them (pa was the photographer). My favourite part (other than the
photos of my young grandma) was that I felt that I could get a good sense of
their travels, as the daily tasks of life were included.
The first set of homework was focussed on exposure (and
grey). Emma helpfully set out a lot of
technical information about how a camera (on auto) determines the correct
exposure – that is, how much light the camera lets in to capture the
image. Long story short, a camera
assumes an image will be 18% grey. This
means, if you take a photo at night you can get quite a grey effect, even
though reality may be much closer to black. I took a terrible photo that exemplifies this in Berlin.
The challenge was then to take some grey photos. And try to create a beautiful image that is
just grey.
Looking closely at grey, I began to notice how many other
shades of brown and blue really come together to create a colour that reads as
grey.
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