Picture 1 Director Ken Russell a light meter arround his neck and a period Leningrad II light meter Picture 2 Frank Redfern setting the white balance Picture 3 Close up of the authors Lennigrad II, after Russia won the Cold War space race every day items were made with a flourish of national pride . . . .
“Your cameraman comes first
- he is ‘king of the floor’.
If the director is God,
then he is the sun”
Ken Russell 1927 - 2011
“The digital camera
has the ability to absorb
and process light
approximate to that of
the human eye.”
Alison Surtees
Creative Industries Salford
Makers of film and theatre with the community
http://www.unleashingcreativity.org/cris/CreativeDirectory.php?iid=2
I cannot remember when the digital camera became part of everyday life. This generation has never been without the capacity to take immediate images, still and moving. opportunistic and crafted, of life as it happens and in the creation of stories. Recorded, collected and distributed Globally instantly. The mystery surrounding pictures is cleared, photography, sometimes great, may happen with a simple ‘click’.
Stories through images have always been told since the early dawn of what human kind sees and feels around them, light has been guiding. From the first aboriginal breath taken to paint hands on cave walls, painters through histories and civilisations have scripted in a language comprehensible to all. In recent times the camera has recorded mankind’s movements and stories. One aspect has remained consistent light, created or natural.
Until the recent age of the digital camera, film makers and photographers have used light meters to record light, reflective levels and ambient to manually adjust lens and camera settings, fine tuning what the camera records to reflect their artistic feelings. The digital camera has taken the personal and artistic interpretation away from the majority of photographers. I wonder how many digital cameras there are out there, with the same automatic features operating the same way, for the majority of digital camera users the quick 'click' will suffice. It is of no wonder that there are so many post production methods and software to change the look of an image. I would argue that great pictures can be made by preparation and design, by understanding the basics of how light can be used by the machine in their hand . . . .
