Learn how to capture the world around you with this activity which provides simple photography techniques like framing, focus, and establishing your vantage point
Photography is the artistic practice of recording an image on light sensitive film or a digital memory card. Photographers use cameras to capture the world around them – scenes that spark emotion, document a moment, or express the artistic vision of the artist. Photographers can employ a variety of techniques and skills, that allow them to shape and craft their imagery in distinctive ways.
Look at the image by photographer RaMell Ross below and think about the following:
iHome, 2012, RaMell Ross (American, born 1982), inkjet print, 36 x 46 in. Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Arthur and Margaret Glasgow Endowment, © RaMell Ross
What is the subject of this photo? The focal point, or the part of an image where the photographer hopes to draw the viewer’s attention, is usually the subject. Do you see the house on the screen of the phone? This is the focal point because it is framed within the phone screen and draws your eye in.
Where is the artist standing? Where are you standing? The point of view is the physical position of the camera when taking a photograph.
Ross chose to take a picture of a house that is almost 200 years old but with a very new technology. The iPhone he is using inspired the title of this work iHome. Now it’s your turn to create!
Pick a location or space to explore. Review the different photography techniques below to learn skills to help transform scenes from your everyday life and ordinary places into expressive photos. You can use these techniques with any type of camera or phone. If you don’t have a camera, you can use these same techniques with a printed viewfinder. A downloadable viewfinder and instructions are at the end of this resource.
A focal point helps guide the viewer’s eye to a point of interest. First, decide what your main subject of the image will be. Then consider which of the following techniques would work best for your subject.
Consider the position of your camera, or point of view, when taking the photograph. Photographing your subject straight on is one of the easiest ways to take a photograph but you can challenge yourself by changing the point of view and photographing your subject from above or below! your Look at the example that follows – how does the point of view change? How does the object seem to change based on that shift in point of view?
Cropping an image is trimming or adjusting the outside edges of a photo. Try using the cropping technique to improve your photograph by removing background distractions and emphasizing your focal point.
You can find the cropping tool on most digital cameras and phone cameras in the editing options for a particular image. The cropping tool is often shown as two overlapping “L” shapes, like this:
Viewfinder – the part of the camera that the photographer uses to look through – like a window – that shows what will be included in a photograph.
On a digital or film camera, the viewfinder is the square eyepiece located on the back of the camera. On a phone camera, the viewfinder is the screen that appears when you open the camera application.
Don’t have access to a camera? Use a printed viewfinder to frame your image by following the steps below:
This art-making activity is inspired by the photography exhibitions, A Long Arc: Photography and the American South since 1845 and American, born Hungary: Kertész, Capa, and the Hungarian American Photographic Legacy which are on view October 5, 2024 – January 26, 2025.
A Long Arc explores the American South’s distinct, evolving, and contradictory character through an examination of photography and how photographers working in the region have reckoned with the South’s fraught history and posed urgent questions about American identity. Organized chronologically, the exhibition traces the South’s shifting identity in more than two hundred photographs made over more than 175 years.
Learn MoreA Long Arc explores the American South’s distinct, evolving, and contradictory character through an examination of photography and how photographers working in the region have reckoned with the South’s fraught history and posed urgent questions about American identity. Organized chronologically, the exhibition traces the South’s shifting identity in more than two hundred photographs made over more than 175 years.
Learn MoreAmerican, born Hungary follows a remarkable number of émigrés and exiles from Hungary to Berlin and Paris and then on to New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles, where they reinvented themselves and American photography. This exhibition is the first full examination of their circuitous journeys to the United States—in the aftermaths of two world wars and Hungary’s student-led revolt in 1956—and the wondrous artistic legacy that developed along the way.
Learn MoreAmerican, born Hungary follows a remarkable number of émigrés and exiles from Hungary to Berlin and Paris and then on to New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles, where they reinvented themselves and American photography. This exhibition is the first full examination of their circuitous journeys to the United States—in the aftermaths of two world wars and Hungary’s student-led revolt in 1956—and the wondrous artistic legacy that developed along the way.
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