Project Rationale | photography

Project

Rationale

One of the things I love about photography is being able to capture that exact moment and keep it forever. This project is about being ‘Caught in the Moment”. It presents a number of candid portraits that are natural and informal, and captures the subject “Caught in the Moment”, which can swiftly pass. In most cases the subject is unaware of the presence of the camera and is totally immersed in their environment. The images capture spontaneity, warmth and humour. They capture expression and reveal a mood all of which were “Caught in the Moment”. By converting the images to black and white a more powerful expression of the subject is created reflecting the artistic aspect of the project.

Dorethea Lange, an American documentary photographer and photojournalist influenced my theme and ideas. Cerkanowicz (n.d.) explains Dorethea Lange was almost invisible as she wandered around photographing. This is how I tend to feel when I wander with my camera. I wanted to capture natural images for my project that reflected the warmth, love and humour that was "Caught in the Moment" the image was taken. Abbey (2010) suggests Dorothea Lange was a natural photographer in the truest sense because she lived, in her words, "a visual life." I believe photography is exactly that, a reflection of visual life. This project displays a visual life of those "Caught in the Moment".

The images were taken during family events or catching up with friends at various indoors and outdoor locations, from home to the park and the beach. As the locations changed rapidly, being ready with the equipment and understanding the technical aspects required to capture my subject at any given moment was extremely important. The most fundamental technical aspect of photography is exposure as suggested by Luck and Freeman (2009, p. 158). Exposure refers to the amount of light captured by the camera. Three factors that control the amount of light is ISO, shutter speed and aperture and understanding the relationship between was significant to capturing the perfect image at that moment. All of the images presented were taken with zoom lenses as this allowed for the spontaneity to be caught reducing the risk of the subject moving during a lens swap.

Capturing that particular moment and creating the right effect is dictated by the necessary combination of ISO aperture and shutter speed required as well as being mindful of the lighting conditions present. The images show good use of ISO, shutter seed and aperture, as well as a good use of Photoshop for editing the images.

Both shutter speed and aperture affect the amount of light entering a camera (London, Stone and Upton 2011, p. 28). Shutter speed affects sharpness of moving objects and aperture affects the depth of field, sharpness from near to far. Used in conjunction together creates exposure. Selecting the correct shutter speed is important especially during hand held photography to help prevent camera shake. Some of the images taken during this project they were excluded due to a resultant blurred image. This could have been avoided by taking more time to adjust settings, however as taking images spontaneously to capture a subject caught in the moment typically provides little time to refine settings, this was one of the challenges the project faced.

ISO measures the sensitivity of the sensor. The higher the ISO the more sensitive the sensor is to light (Luck and Freeman 2009, p. 82). A drawback of a high ISO is an increase in grain in the image often referred to as noise. As there is also a direct relationship between ISO and shutter speed getting these settings correct for a particular moment is imperative to capturing an image with the correct exposure. The technical details for each of the images in the Project Images page show a little more time could have been spent correcting ISO and shutter speeds. The images appear to be exposed correctly and some simple fine-tuning would perhaps produce even better images and remove noise and blur caused by camera shake and incorrect ISO and shutter speeds for that situation. Being able to capture that “Caught in the Moment” shot requires quick fingers and a very good understanding of equipment to refine these settings.

An understanding of aperture is presented well in the images. Using aperture to achieve a shallow depth of field enables the focus to be on one particular part of the image, which in the case of this project is my subject and capturing their expression for that particular moment. Luck and Freeman (2009, p. 172) explain the importance being able to select which parts of an image are in focus and which are blurred is a fundamental aspect of creative photography. It also requires an eye for creating visually pleasing images to be produced.

The composition of the images in the project is excellent with a good eye for detail. Luck and Freeman (2009, p. 119) discusses the three key areas in composition to be: the centre of interest and where the shot will be taken from, possible distractions or intrusions removed and enhancing the foreground. Capturing the exact moment is difficult. It requires thought and quick thinking to be prepared to capture those special particular moments. In this project, “Caught in the Moment” images recreate the mood, humour and warmth just as they have been experienced. Each image tells its own story and conjures up the emotions and memories of that exact moment.

1/125 f 13 ISO 200 35mm

1/25 f2.8 ISO 500 24mm