into the light
by C. Charlie Chan
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ab ovo the beginning
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I
don’t exactly remember the first camera I ever shot. But, it’s likely to have been a Polaroid, just like this one that a friend of mine recently got at a local flea market.
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hat I do remember though is the first camera I ever owned. It was a Kodak Disc 4000. I still remember how to load it, as it had always reminded me of opening up a pocketbook.
Source: creativecommons.com
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Source: creativecommons.com
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fter that I was simply a 110-Instamatic kind of guy. It looked like just this one. But mine was completely black, and it was a Vivitar. I took that camera everywhere. 7
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ast forward more than 30 years. And, here’s what I came up with when told—as part of a basic photography class—to put the camera on manual. So, it’s supposed to be a photo of my copper bowl and my other pastry tools, all remnants of another life and anyhow of another story. “Muddy,” reacting to the photo, the professor said. Mercifully, that’s all he said, and all that he needed to. I had work to do.
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in vitro initial studies
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here were the basics to learn: f-stop, shutter speed, ISO. Depth of field, reciprocity, and exposure, not to mention the zone system. And then, of course, there’s the camera itself with all its promise of control— with each knob, lever, & button.
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B
esides all the controls, there are also all those visual components that go into a photograph. Components such as repetition of theme, balance, framing, along with texture, real lines, implied lines, converging lines, shadow, and, of course, light.
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What follows then are initial studies on some of these visual components.
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in vivo further afield
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fter initial exposure to some of the key visual photographic elements, what followed then are further explorations of photography as practice—from night photography, to street photography, to portraiture, and to experimental photography.
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What follows then are a mix of some of these further studies on photography.
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in natura out onto the world
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O
ne of the many allures of photography is that there is always something new to learn. There’s always something to be better at. Since taking the basic photography class, I have gone back to shooting film. I’ve learned a lot from it. It has forced me to slow down, and that has been a great teacher. I have become more attuned to my camera, to the scene before me, and, of course, to the light.
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love architecture, color, symmetry, form, and anything that strikes me as having that beautiful touch of whimsy. I don’t know where my photography will go next. But, all that follows is from where I’ve been lately.
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Nov. 2013