The word “photography” literally means “drawing with light”. The word originated from the Greek words phos, (genitive: phōtós) meaning “light”, and graphê meaning “drawing or writing”.
Technically photography is the process of recording visual images by capturing light rays on a light-sensitive recording medium. In earlier days the medium where photosensitive chemical plates and later on evolved to be films. Modern day digital photography utilises electronic sensors to capture the light.
We can separate the photography process into two:
- Technical: The science of setting up the camera and the recording medium to take images in a controlled way.
- Creative: The art of composing good images to capture.
There are dozens of different genres of photography. Some require specialist knowledge (e.g. scientific photography), but almost all photography involves the same basic principles of obtaining a clear, focused image through a lens and onto the recording medium.
Digital photography technology is growing incredibly fast and is providing us with smaller and better cameras. With the entry of mobile phone cameras and social media , photography has reached the masses in no time. The choice of the professionals remains to be the DSLR /Mirrorless which provides the photographer complete manual control of the camera to create the image.
Analog photography uses film as the recording medium, which is a chemical process. Modern photography is heavily geared towards digital photography, which is an electronic process. In either type of photography the basic process is the same, as illustrated in this (over-simplified) camera diagram:
Light path inside a DSLR
In Mirrorless camera the mirror mechanism and the pentaprism are absent. Instead light directly falls on the sensor and focus sensors are placed to capture the incident light. The viewfinder in mirrorless is a small high resolution electronic display. Removal of the mirror mechanism has made the mirrorless camera smaller and lighter compared to dslr. They also have an advantage of real time simulation of the scene in the LCD/viewfinder. Sooner the DSLRs will be a thing of the past, Mirrorless cameras replacing its place.
A critical part of the camera is the optical element, the lens. The role of the lens is to take incoming light rays and bend them to form a clear image on the recording medium. The structure of the lens determines how much the light is bent and the magnification of the resulting image. There are different kinds of lens for creating different perspective images. But their role remains the same, i.e. to converge the light rays onto the image sensor.
We have discussed a good amount of science involved in photography. Now let us look into the art part of photography. The art part involves the light behaviour, color combinations in the frame, contrast of the scene, subject perspectives and so on. Its innumerable possibilities in photography to visualize your thoughts. We can simplify it and call it a medium which allows unlimited painting possibilities.
Like all arts, good photography comes with practice. Learn about the camera, learn about picture composition, and practice. Below is an infographic from Huffingtonpost showing some interesting facts about photography