PHOTOGRAPHY. Drawing with Lights.

 

PHOTOGRAPHY. Drawing with Lights.

The word 'photography' comes from two ancient Greek words: photo, for 'light', and graph, for 'writing' or 'drawing'.

Photography, the process of taking pictures, requires a camera. Cameras work basically as our eyes do. Light enters the front and shines a picture on the back. A camera may be any dark lightproof box with a small opening at one end that lets in light. Most cameras have glass lenses to help focus the light into the back of the box.

In your eye, light enters through an opening called the 'pupil'. The camera's opening is its aperture. Your iris controls how much light enters your eye. The camera's shutter does the same. In eyes and in most cameras, the light then passes through a lens. In your eye, the picture is produced on the retina, the back lining of the eye. In a traditional camera, the film receives and captures the image.

Photographic film is special material that has been treated with chemicals to make it sensitive to light. Light shining on film changes the film's chemical makeup. Depending on how much light shines on each part of the film, different shades or colours result.

The film has to be taken out of the camera and developed in order to finish the process of creating a photograph. Film that has been exposed to light is processed with chemicals that fix the image on special paper.

Digital cameras don't use film. Instead, they translate the image into numbers recorded on a disk inside the camera. A computer decodes these numbers and displays a picture.