Rich Kopp Photography

Posts Tagged ‘Photographer’

Filters are an indispensable element in photography. Whether to protect the lens or to correct minor defects in the light, every photographer should have some basic filters on your computer. What are the most important?

What is a photographic filter?
A filter is a crystal that is placed in front of goal and get different effects from changes in light. A variety of filters, from which offset, for example, the brightness without affecting the accuracy of the image to distort or highlight the colors.

The photographic filters are a useful tool for any photographer. No need to buy them all, with two or three base is enough and then can be purchased additionally if you want to try new effects. The UV filter, polarizing filter and the filter neutral density filters are three must-haves in any photographic equipment.

Ultraviolet or UV filter is the most basic of all. It is also called protective filter, since its main function is to protect the camera lens from bumps and scratches. Blocks also part of the ultraviolent light and some, called Skylight, correct shades of blue.

In general, most photographers have a UV filter on each of their goals because they can prevent serious damage to the photographic material. However, despite the effect it has on light is minimal, there are photographers who dismiss such filters on the grounds that the picture loses sharpness.

Polarizing filter
The polarizing filter, as its name suggests, lets the polarized light, ie light having an oscillation in a single plane. Its main function is to eliminate glare and reflections that can be unsightly in the image, which is usually used when shooting water bodies.

It also allows to obtain a more defined and contrasted heavens and improves the overall color saturation. However, one must know when and how to use it because its effect varies with the angle at which they are placed.

Neutral Density Filter
A neutral density filter, also called gray are used to control the amount of light that passes without modifying the original colors. They are especially useful in very bright environments, when you want to do long exposures or to open the maximum aperture for significantly less depth of field without burning the image.

Neutral density filters are available with different levels of light reduction. In general, diaphragms or count points of intensity, depending on the amount of light blocked.
Other filters for the camera

Although the aforementioned are the most important, there are a variety of filters for the camera. There are some that allow the lights look like flashes, others corrected colors to suit the photographer, or others acting only on part of the picture, noting, for example, the sky.

There is also a wide range dedicated to black and white photography, which allow certain selected colors in a grayish out more or less dark.
How to replace the filters in the camera

The filters are placed before the objective lens and are generally twisted, but there are models to be fitted square with an adapter.

The first thing to check is that the diameter of the filter suits the target. If it is larger or smaller can not be used, so it is important to know this information before buying.

Moreover, filters in general may overlap so that you can put, for example, a UV polarizer without removing the protection.

Filters are a good ally of the photographer and may have interesting effects in the images. While many of them are also available on the computer, the end result will probably be better using the filter directly from the camera as the filter on your computer.

James Nachtwey is one of the most recognized contemporary photographers and respected in the world. The numerous awards, such as Martin Luther King, Robert Capa Gold Medal, the World Press Photo prize or Bayeaux for war correspondents, support its long history. According to The ABC of photography Nachtwey is the “most experienced war reporters and probably one of the few that has shown interest in the war itself.”
James Nachtwey’s beginnings as a photojournalist

Born in upstate New York in 1948, James Nachtwey graduated in Art History and Political Science in 1970. During their first jobs, among which include apprentice editor and a truck driver, became interested in social photography.

Images of Vietnam and the civil rights movement led him to the U.S. realize the power of photography as a means of communication and reporting. He himself said in an interview with Dena Cowen that “the public and the public needed the knowledge of these topics. I thought that photography was a useful tool to raise awareness and change and so I wanted to get involved in it.”

In 1976 Nachtwey started working as a photojournalist for a newspaper in New Mexico and four years later moved to New York where he began his career as a freelance for magazines.

In 1981 he covered the conflict between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland. It was his first assignment abroad and since then his career in photography and photography of social conflicts would be unstoppable.

The social criticism through war photography

In the last thirty years has captured images James Nachtwey over 25 social conflicts or across the world to different media. Northern Ireland, Africa, Central America, Middle East, Southeast Asia or the Balkans have been the scene of emergencies that the photographer wanted to make his testimony and report publicly.

“I think people should be offended with the genocide. It should offend the ethnic cleansing. It should offend hunger. My job is to make these things are comfortable or easily digestible. My job is not to feel comfortable to People with these things, or entertain. My job is to make people aware of the fact that they are crimes against humanity, “said on its website.

Between 1980 and 1985 was associated with Black Star agency and in 1984 was hired by Time magazine, as well as belonging to the Magnum from 1986 until 2001. However, not all stories that were attractive photographer wanted to split the media. In cases such as orphanages in Romania or the famine in Somalia, financed his own trip Nachtwey.
Magnum-VII, the vision of a new photo agency close to the conflict

In 2001 he left Magnum Nachtwey and co-founded the agency VII, named for the seven photojournalists who constitute it. According to the same site VII, the eleven members documenting current environmental conflicts, social and political “to produce an unshakable testimony of the injustices created and experienced by people caught up in events they describe.”

Many of his images show the turbulent beginnings of the century, in which photographers do not hesitate to get involved in the conflict to document the facts and cause people to act.

The closeness of his pictures, taken with wide angle lenses always or 50mm, involves the viewer and Nachtwey was, like many other reporters, to be injured during their work. In 2003, while covering the arrival of U.S. troops to Iraq, a hand grenade entered the U.S. Army Humvee in which he was the correspondent Michael Weisskopf of Time and wounded two soldiers and two journalists. Nachtwey arrived to take several pictures of the doctor who attended Weisskopf before becoming unconscious for several days.