A little more on Photography

Photography has been around for over 100 years, and it has changed a lot since its inception back in the 1800’s, and even the first true photograph taken by Joseph Niepce in 1826. (Warren) A big part of the (granted, few) photography classes I’ve taken and books I’ve read devote a huge chunk of time and energy to the history of the field.

I think this is truly, very important to appreciating and gaining a true understanding for the visual media and how to produce it, because we see throwbacks to earlier methods even today in this age of point-and-shoot. Let’s take a look at some older photography terms that still survive today, but in a new form.

Dodge/burn – The practice of dodging and burning comes from exposing areas of a photograph selectively to more or less light for a desired effect. 

Sponge? I have no idea.

So when your paper and negative are loaded up in the enlarger you would expose certain areas (burn) and cover others (dodge) to make said areas darker or lighter, respectively. Photoshop, GIMP and many other photo editing tools give photographers a means to digitally darken and lighten specific parts of their photo. Digital means are much more precise, as with film one wouldn’t know if they needed to add more or less time until the photo was fully developed. Films greater tonal curve, however, means much more lightening or darkening can occur before there is any loss of information in your image.

Proofs – Traditionally, a proof is made by cutting the negatives, laying them on top of a sheet of photographic paper and exposing the whole thing. The result is a sheet of tiny images, which can be viewed through a loupe. This is done to help you select which negatives are worthy of printing full size.

Today, the term ‘proof’ can mean a set of unedited images presented to a client in a portrait studio for selection, or it can mean a photographic resume of sorts, often a PDF with selections of the photographers work.

Negative – This is, of course, the crinkly stuff with all the sprocket holes in it you get after you develop an exposed roll of film. Negatives today (they have had numerous different compositions in the past) are gelatin-based sheets, which save the color information in such a way that when light is passed through it, it produces your photo on light sensitive paper.

Seen today in the file type DNG, or Digital Negative File, called such because it stores much more information than a JPEG, so is more like a negative in terms of long term storage and usefulness.

Cross Process, or X-PRO – This is a popular filter in many digital editing programs, such as Photoshop, GIMP and even on Instamatic. 

Photo by Ame Aziere

Originally, however, to cross process meant to develop one type of film in the chemicals used to develop another. The most popular is developing E6 film (used to shoot slides) in the chemicals for C41(this is the type for standard 35mm color film) and usually results in a greenish cast with high contrast when scanned with standard settings.

Airbrush – Based on, you guessed it, loading up an airbrush and painting directly over imperfections. This was very labor intensive, as it had to be done on a per-photo basis, but there are historical photos on which it was employed for propaganda purposes by the soviet government on more than one occasion.

You can see more here: http://www.famouspictures.org/mag/index.php?title=Altered_Images#Trotsky.3F_What_Trotsky.3F

Today the term is used to mean a photo heavily and noticeably edited to remove perceived imperfections in the subject.

ISO – This, very simply, is a rating that determines how light-sensitive a roll of film is, to help the photographer be sure to expose it correctly and consistently.

Though traditionally rating numbers varied from country to country, the ASA (American Standard) and DIN (Deutches Industrie) was combined in the mid 80’s resulting in the international standard of ISO. (Warren)

 In digital photography, ISO serves a similar function, making the card more sensitive to light, at the cost of a ‘grainier’ (not actually grains, as in film, but technically image noise) photo.

Slides – These differ from negative film in that they record color the same as the photo would, usually to be viewed through a slide projector. The term ‘slide’ is used in PowerPoint and similar programs to denote pieces of visual information shown in a series for presentation to a group.

Please note, information where cited is coming from ‘Photography: The Concise Guide by Bruce Warren’ which is a great text, and I have kept ensconced at my desk as a reference. The following is by no means an exhaustive list, and if I’ve missed anything, please say so in the comments!