monday #2: history

Our second session was dedicated to the history.

But first, we evaluated our homework from previous meeting. Our task was to capture our normal day through photography. I really liked Mitja's series which was highly conceptual. He made shots of surfaces/places that he is sitting on during his day - from early morning through busy day up to late evening. Clean, fine series.

Links to our homeworks: Mitja, Dušan, all others - please - send me links.

So back to our topic. We were talking about the history. History of photography itself, how it evolved from camera obscura through daguerreotype to first digital aparats. Historical overview of anything is usually quite boring and our case was not exception.

And making some practical "historical" task is also not easy thing to do. But inspired by many fruitful sources of the internet, we took some photos of old Maribor and we hit the town. It was not so much about history of photography but history of place where we live. You can try to do the same. Find an old photo of some place that you know, take it to your hand and with second hand, take a photo of how the environment looks nowadays. You will be able to see how our towns, streets and whole world changes.

It's not so easy as it looks. Next time, we have to be more accurate. And tips for those who want to try it. It's good to have bigger prints and wide lens (and sun in your back).

Whilte talking about the evolution of photographic techniques, we mentioned camera obscura and pinhole. These are basic principles of how photoaparat functions. It's good to know it. And that's why our new homework is to make a pinhole aparat. There are many many tutorials on the internet how to make different kinds of pinholes, so google one and try to construct your own analog fotkič. Once you have it, you need photo paper and chemicals for processing the photos in the dark room. We will try our pinholes in two weeks when we get all the necessary stuff.

You can try with us!

Or home alone - but don't forget to share your results.

See you next Monday on basics of composition.

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And I almost forgot to show you beautiful photograms that Katja made last week!