1. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I. Art of Seeing 17 slides Copyright © 2003 - 2009 Kenji Tachibana

2. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Art of Seeing: Don’t ask your camera to do impossible things… A rt of… 1.Seeing – look beyond your expectations, prejudices, and the desire to be good or to fit in. 2.Interpreting – use the camera, light, subject, prop, foreground, and background to MAKE your story. 3.Presenting – make sure you tell the story that you intended by using your team and class feedback on: a.Story – keep it simple and personal b.Technique – listen to your camera c.Composition – crop tight but with 10% margin d.Lighting – shoot with plenty of light (30 th sec @ f/4) Don’t ask your camera to do impossible things…

3. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Art of Seeing: Required skill A rt of… seeing without filters a.All of us view the world through rose-colored ‘filters’ which helps us to survive and prosper by feeling competent and comfortable. In that sense, filters are essential for our mental and spiritual health. b.On the other hand, they keep us from seeing reality ‘as it is’ and that isn’t good for an artist. As an image maker, you must consciously learn to remove the rose-colored filter from your mind’s eye. Some of the filters that can get in your way are: -Expectation – we all have them -Prejudice – negative and positive -Desire – hidden desires are the most dangerous

4. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Art of Seeing: Required skill A rt of… seeing on automatic Your internal system is already running on ‘Automatic’. -Your eye continually adjust for brightness by controlling the size of the pupil -Your eyes continually adjust the color -Your eyes also continually refocuses -Your brain scans and evaluate all in coming data for danger

5. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Art of Seeing: Required skill A rt of… seeing on manual 1 of 4 First you must come to realize and accept the fact that you have filters and they are set to full auto. And that may or may not be easy for you. The assignment critiques are designed to give you the “filter Off” point of view. That is, others in the class will help you to see your own work through their eyes which are free of your particular filter set.

6. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Art of Seeing: Required skill A rt of… seeing on manual 2 of 4 There are also few technique you can use to see without filters but they will take practice to master. 1.Easiest is to view the scene through squinted eyes. The slightly blurred and abstracted scene will reduce the filter affect. 2.Next might be to add a ‘hand frame’ to the squint-viewing. 3.Cinematographers often set up their shot using a viewing scope which is very similar to squint- viewing but would bankrupt most of us.

7. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Art of Seeing: Required skill A rt of… seeing on manual 3 of 4 Another aspect of filter-seeing is for our brains to see in terms of symbols: At the primal level… Is it safe At the primal level… Is it safe At the economic level… Is it profitable (rewarding) At the economic level… Is it profitable (rewarding) At the social level… Is it friendly or not At the social level… Is it friendly or not At the spiritual…Is it blessed or evil At the spiritual…Is it blessed or evil All of these ways of seeing has nothing to do with seeing things as they are…

8. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Art of Seeing: Required skill A rt of… seeing the Things-as-is In some ways, seeing things ‘exactly’ as they are is very difficult. We are unlikely to ever get to the ‘so called’ truth of things. It’s very difficult to see from the outside when we are in the inside, That’s probably why history is written by people who come after us. The function of the story teller is to share the ever elusive truth of things.

9. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Required Skill: Interpretation A rt of… interpretation: Poor and good lighting example sets with ‘normal’ and ‘simulated’ squint-view examples. Warning: In this situation, the poor or good lighting is a matter of turning the subject away from or towards the light. The light source remains stationary. Therefore, the describing the lighting as being poor or good is somewhat over-simplified. Poor lightingLost important facial detailGood lightingImproved facial detail Normal 1Simulated squint viewNormal 2Simulated squint view

10. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Required Skill: Interpretation A rt of… interpretation: Interactive slide Look at the ‘Norma 1’ and squint your eyes until it starts to look like the ‘Squint-view’ when your eyes are not squinted. Do the same with the ‘Normal 2’ set. Practice this simple exercise until it can be done quickly and consistently. This is what you need to be doing every time you look at your photographic scene or subject. And make the necessary lighting, subject, or any other changes before you take the shot. Normal 1Squint-view exampleNormal 2 Squint-view example

11. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Required Skill: Interpretation A rt of… interpretation: Exposure (brightness) 1.Skin tone reference with black to while dynamic range scale. Too lightJust rightToo dark Besides looking ‘believably bright’, this slide is about ‘separation of the tones’ in the dynamic range scale. In both the light and dark versions, the tonal scale does not fully separate for different reasons. In the light, the light tones are blown out (washed out). In the dark, most of the separation become murky or too dark.

12. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Required Skill: Interpretation A rt of… interpretation: Exposure (brightness) 2.Histogram – exposure expressed as a graph. Too lightJust rightToo dark Too lightJust rightToo dark Don’t do this to your self. Do this instead.

13. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Required Skill: Interpretation A rt of… interpretation: LCD Most digital camera LCD (liquid crystal display) screen tends to be too Contrasty, Saturated, and Cool (Cool to Warm) in color. The laptop and tabletop LCD screens suffer from the same distorted image problem. There are LCD screen that produce accurate tones and colors but they cost $2,000 or more. That is way too costly for most of us. The traditional CRT (cathode ray tube) monitors were more true to reality. Even the CRT’s came in the mass production and specialty designer qualities.

14. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Required Skill: Interpretation A rt of… interpretation: Light meter standard and facts 1.Image brightness is a relative thing in the real- world, camera LCD, viewfinder, computer screen, and the print. So, the idea of correct exposure is a combination of science and art (this has already been discussed). 2.Science – light meter has been based on the 18% gray for over 50 years. And there are two kinds of light meters. The reflected type (on your camera) and the more accurate incident type (used in the film industry). 3.Classic Standard – Center Weighted metering was the culmination of the old metering technology before computers. It performed with 90% or better accuracy.

15. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Required Skill: Interpretation A rt of… interpretation: Light meter standard and facts 4.The center weighted reading measured only the 12% circle area at the center of the frame. 5.The new computer assisted Matrix metering is based on measuring 12 or more sections of the frame. And all the scene lighting information is processed by the micro computer built into camera to arrive at the correct exposure. 6.For the novice user, I recommend the computerized ‘default’ Matrix Metering mode.

16. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Required Skill: Interpretation A rt of… interpretation: Tones (values) You’ll be working with one or more of these images to improve your skill working with the light meter and in seeing tones from black to white.

17. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Required Skill: Interpretation S ummary: High story telling skill is a must for strong image making. Although it must also be supported by high skill and craftsman. And to do that, the ability to see ‘what is’ is extremely vital. My PowerPoint shows classified as ‘Case Study’, ‘Stages’, or ‘Steps’ are designed to help you see and to improve you ability to see through the use of direct progressive comparison images.

18. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I x End