Photography is the practice of capturing and creating images using a camera. It involves the use of light and lenses to capture images on a light-sensitive surface or digital sensor. Used to document events, capture memories, tell stories or create art, photographers use a wide range of techniques and equipment to achieve different effects, such as adjusting the aperture and shutter speed to control the amount of light and depth of field, using different lenses to change the perspective or create specific visual effects, and post-processing images using software to enhance colours and contrast.
Photography has a long and rich history in which it has such a big impact on how we look at the world around us and created growth when it comes to photography as an art form and a way of communicating our feelings and experiences. Before the 19th century people could only create images by drawing, painting, or sculpting so the invention of photography revolutionised the way the way we could capture and reproduce images. The first photograph was thought to be taken by French inventor Nicéphore Niépce in 1816 using a camera obscura.
By the late 19th century film roll and handheld cameras had been developed making photography more easily accessed by the public and more amateur photographers to emerge. By the 20th century, the first coloured photographs had been created by James Clerk Maxwell which was created by mixing different proportions of red, green, and blue light. This opened up opportunity to photographs allowing them to experiment with new styles and techniques. Now in the 21st century, photography is on an all time high with millions of pictures being taken everyday with smartphones and cameras and the launch of editing software, it is easier than ever to capture and create photographic art especially when we use techniques such as the Fibonacci sequence of rule of thirds.
When creating a user interface, we use photography to make the interface look interesting. A lot of cafes and websites use photographs in this way to entice customers into trying their products and developing an interest in their company. An example we looked at in class which I think reflects the use of photography in this way well is the website for Waterman, a restaurant in the Cathedral Quarter. The website for Waterman uses a umber of photos of their dishes including mouth watering steaks and other meals. It also shows the interior of the restaurant and gives the customer a good idea of what they are going to arrive to. The aesthetic of the website reflects the look and the feel of Waterman restaurant interior really well and clearly builds up a story behind the restaurant and their food. For me I think it is really important as a brand that they both match as if the website was fun and cheesy but the restaurant was extremely posh, it would not give the same aesthetic and leave potential customers confused.
Photography can be used as a powerful tool for illustrating ideas and products to a customer or when pitching an idea to a company. As the saying goes “a picture paints a thousand words” and this is an example of that as a photography can convey many perspectives of an idea. A good example of this that we looked at was Apple’s Mac Studio. Steve Jobs father was a furniture maker and always taught him that the inside of the products had to be as pretty as the outside despite the fact nobody can see it. So when Steve Jobs was designing the Mac he insured the inside was as pretty and tidy as the outside. This way of creating Apple products continues to live on and as devices got smaller, the manufactures adapted.
A good example of when photography is used to communicate information is car manufacturer websites. They use the photographs of the cars features and body work to appeal to a wider audience and essentially sell more cars. The photographs are used to tell a story about the car and build up that feeling of making the consumer want it by showing off its flashy features and using photos of the car moving to show its speed and smoothness.
Photographs are commonly used to promote a brand and create that brands identity. The kind of photographs a brand uses to promote themselves really reflects off the brand. A great example of this is Translink and how they try to promote a smooth and nice journey but the stock and non professional photos they use doesn't reflect this. All their photos are very grainy or low quality or stock images that have no uniqueness at all and are essentially extremely boring. It makes gives off the idea that its very low quality which does not match Translink's brand values. What makes it worse is the picture on their home page as the header has a picture of a digger in the corner of it which gives the effect that the train tracks are always needing repaired!!
