Find a scene that has depth. From a fixed position, take a sequence of five or six shots at different focal lengths without changing your viewpoint. (You might like to use the specific focal lengths indicated on the lens barrel.) As you page through the shots on the preview screen it almost feels as thought you’re moving through the scene. So the ability to change focal lengths has an obvious use: rather than physically move towards or away from your subject, the lens can do it for you. But zooming is also a move towards abstraction, which, as the word itself tells us, the process of drawing things away’ from their context.
For this exercise I used my Canon 100D with 18-55mm barrel lens.
I am going to go back to the same location and take these shots again with a 75-300mm barrel lens on as I realised my camera was in manual setting and not aperture priority as requested in our guide.
Below is another attempt of this exercise that I took today whilst out on my walk. I made sure my camera was set to aperture priority mode I stood in a fixed position in an area that had depth. I shot my image and slowly zoomed in taking several more images. When looking back through my photos it gave the illusion that you were travelling down the path.
Looking at some of the examples shown in my guide book, I explored Hans Holbein’s painting of ‘The Ambassafors’ from 1533. This was shot on a gigapixel camera. From initial viewing it looks remarkable however, it is noticeable upon looking further and zooming in you can see cracks, dust marks and blemishes. Please see examples below.
I began experimenting with one of my images from this exercise and its shown that as I zoom in the images become blurry and become unclear. It just shows that an image can look impressive on first view but when looked at closer/zoomed in you can see it in another way. This also reminds me of the work by Uta Barth who is known for her deliberate blurred photos.
https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/hans-holbein-the-younger-the-ambassadors Date accessed 4/7/2019
http://www.tanyabonakdargallery.com/artists/uta-barth/series-photography Date accessed 4/7/2019
Heather Wade OCA Blog 