Marz-Joe

=__**Focus**__=

When taking a photo, it is important to take focus into consideration. Focus is what essentially makes or breaks a picture. A photo's focus determines the quality of the image you are taking. Having certain parts of your photo unintentionally out of focus can take away from the overall picture. Furthermore, an image's focus greatly helps to get across a photo's message-- as the object or person a photo is focused on will ultimately become a primary subject of your photo. When using a digital slr camera, focus will be a major factor to your photos. To get a good focus on a digital slr, the best options available would be to get as close to your subject as possible in order to get said subject in focus, or to use the optical zoom available on your slr. While you can also use a digital slr's digital zoom to get a subject in focus, digital zoom could make your photo appear grainy-- therefore making the aforementioned options the preferred choices so as to take away from your photo as meagerly as possible.

=**__Depth of Field__**=

Depth of field is the amount of your photo that will appear in focus. This concept is an important one to know of and understand, as depth of field is what ultimately controls what a viewer will be seeing and focusing on in a photo. If you want a viewer to focus on a particular part of your photo, you would shrink your depth of field to have your image focus on solely that particular section. If you want a viewer to focus on both your subject and your background, you would enlarge the depth of field to make that happen. Such control over what someone is seeing in your photo and over what message is being sent by your picture cannot be achieved without depth of field-- thus making depth of field crucial to any picture.

=**__Exposure Triangle__**=

The exposure triangle is a balancing between three aspects of photography that ultimately determine the quality of a picture. There are three parts to the exposure triangle, including ISO-- the amount of sensitivity a camera has to light-- aperture-- the size of a camera lens' opening when taking a photo-- and shutter speed-- the amount of time your scene is viewed by your lens. Each have an effect on one another, and tinkering with one will ultimately change the others in some fashion. For example, a higher ISO or light sensitivity will generally result in being able to have higher shutter speeds, but lower apertures. Similarly, choosing faster shutter speeds will lower the amount of light being let into your camera-- thus lowering ISO-- which will result in you needing to increase your aperture in order for your photo to take in more light. This same relationship works in reverse, meaning that increased aperture leads to an increased ISO-- meaning that shutter speed would need to be lowered in order to return ISO to normal. Knowing the exposure triangle and how its aspects connect to one another is vital to taking a quality photo. Without proper aperture, viewers will not get to see the entirety of the photo that was meant to be seen, or will get to see far more of the photo than necessary. Without proper ISO, an image's brightness will be thrown off-- meaning that people will not properly see a photo. Without proper shutter speed, the way an image is captured will get thrown off-- resulting in a potentially blurred and unviewable photo. Without the proper workings and balance of the triangle, an image cannot be seen the way it was intended-- thus meaning that the exposure triangle is necessary in order to make a perfect and desired photo.

=**__Compositional Techniques__**=

The 5 compositional techniques we use in photography are leading lines, rule of thirds, fill the frame, level horizon, and framing. Leading lines are where we make use of the various lines in a photo to draw in a viewer's eyes-- thus creating a sense of movement in a photo. The rule of thirds is where we divide an image into thirds vertically and horizontally. Realizing that the intersection points of these thirds are of the most interest to a viewer, we intentionally place our subjects onto these intersections in order to create a more interesting photo. Filling the frame is where we have our subject fill up all or most of the image in order to create a more interesting subject without unnecessary details. Level horizon is where we take the landscapes and horizons in our background and level them off in order to remove unnecessary tension in our pictures. The final technique, framing, is where we use various elements of a photo-- such as trees or arches-- in order to frame our subject and make viewers focus on said subject.

=**__Artificial vs Natural Light__**=

Artificial light and natural light are the two types of light sources that we use when taking a photo. Light that is artificial generally comes from man-made sources-- such as light-bulbs and camera flashes. These light sources are generally used in the form of bounce lights-- where a white umbrella is used to reflect light back at a subject-- dramatic lighting-- where a subject is only lit from one side-- and fill lights-- in which multiple light sources are used to eliminate shadows in a photo. Natural light, on the other hand, generally comes from nature-- such as firelight, moonlight, and sunlight. Sources of natural light generally provide more powerful and dramatic shadows, and tend to light a subject better. If you are looking for better shadows and for better lighting in general, natural light is the best way to go. However, if you want to have control over the way that light hits your subject, then it is better to use artificial light.

=__** My Experience with Light Sources **__=

I have experience shooting with primarily artificial light, but I have worked with natural light before. Back in Intro to Digital Media, I experimented with several types of artificial light-- such as light-bulbs and camera flashes-- in order to see how such light sources would impact my photo. Additionally, I worked with the natural light source of sunlight coming through a window in order to see how the stronger light would affect the image I ended up with.