The Akron Art Museum is Moving

Growing up one of my favorite activities was visiting the museum in Akron. Formerly the Art Institute, the museum has been in existence since the twenties and moved around a bit until it settled at 69 East Market Street. By the seventies, the focus had changed from offering a historical collection of art to one that provided the “finest modern and contemporary art” to patrons in Northeast Ohio. Renamed the Akron Art Museum in 1981 they moved across the street to an old post office in what is now their current location.This is how I remember the art museum; interesting abstract exhibits that took up the entire room and a plethora of huge paintings that covered every major post-modern movement one could think of, cubism, pointillism, you name it! I then left Akron for college in the early nineties and had learned about other museums in other cities, notably those in Cincinnati and Dayton. It was not until recently on a trip back to Akron that I discovered that the museum was moving closer to the edge of downtown and had a new, visually aggressive design. The new design fuses the old building from the seventies with a new glass structure. Coop Himmelb(l)au is the team behind the new look, unlike other museums in Ohio the Akron Art Museum is rather small, as only 1% of their entire collection can be shown in the current structure at any time. When the new building opens up in 2006, those issues will have been addressed and Akron will finally have a museum on par with those elsewhere in Ohio and architecturally comparable to those in cities like Washington D.C, and New York City, for a change.

How Europeans Incorporate Eastern Art

European Use of Non-Western Art
Miranda Smith
Southern Utah University
December 2001


During the early 20th Century European Avant-Garde artists utilized non-Western art and incorporated it into their own art. African art was one of the most appropriated forms. Most of what was seen as influential from Africa was sculpture. African sculpture typically includes nonorganic planar shifts that contrast with Classical proportions. The elongated areas of the body, such as face, neck and torso as seen on p. 457 in the Adams book, illustrate the non-Classical nature of African art.

One of the Avant-Garde schools that specifically utilized African art was The Bridge (Die Brucke). This group was intent on building a link between their art and revolutionary ideas, and between tradition and Avant-Garde. One of the ways those in The Bridge worked toward this was by combining the geometric look of African art with more traditional ideas. The flattened forms of Kirchner's The Street (p. 459) speak to this idea. The figures in The Street are also elongated, as seen in the sculpture of the Baule ancestor from Africa.

Matisse was also influenced by African art. His work speaks of African masks. His lack of modeling in his work Madame Matisse (p. 458) bears strong resemblance to the masks found in Africa. There is also a lack of organic qualities in this painting. The hair on her head is flat, and it seems to perch on the top of her head. Matisse was also influenced by Arabian art. In his Harmony in Red (p. 463), sinuous lines are used to create an illusion of animation. Matisse coined the term "arabesque" in reference to the lines seen in Arabian architecture, such as mosques.

Emil Nolde was also influenced by African art. However he used other non-Western influences in his art. His Still Life with Masks (p. 460) is indicative of the use if non-Western art. One of the masks (the red one) is based on a drawing of an Oceanic canoe prow, the yellow skull is derived from Brazilian shrunken heads, and the green mask seems to be influenced by African art.

It is clear that these artists were very interested in appropriating other art forms for their own use. This fueled further Avant-Garde developments and shaped the art of the early 20th Century. African art appears to be the most pervasive in these works, but the influences of Arabia, the New World, and Oceania can also be seen. It is also important to note that while these artists copied the look of these other forms of art, the cultural context of the art in regard to the peoples it was borrowed from was lost.


Bibliography

Laurie Schneider Adams, A History of Modern Art (New York, N.Y.: McGraw-Hill, 2000).

Annual Art Contests for Kids

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One good way to encourage your child to develop their imaginations and to get them away from the television is to have them enter an art contest. There are many different types of art contests that are designed for kids. Most will revolve around creating a poster for a themed event, or creating some sort of narrative art that teaches a lesson as well as entertains. To find these contests you will want to look for annual contests and for new campaigns offered by federal and state agencies as well as nonprofit organizations.

Children’s Art Contest Number One – The Annual Tar Wars National Poster Contest

The Tar Wars National Poster Contest is an annual art competition for kids. To qualify for this competition the child needs to be in the fourth or fifth grade, they must have had the Tar Wars presentation given to them in school, they must create a poster based on this year’s theme, and they must submit their entry by their state’s deadline. If you are a teacher and would like your class to participate in this anti-tobacco art competition you can contact your state representative to get the materials needed. To find the contact information for your state’s Tar Wars representative you will need to go to the Tar Wars homepage located at http://www.tarwars.org/poster.exml. Art work will be judged on creativity, originality, interpretation of the anti-tobacco theme, and the clear and positive message that it depicts. Posters will need to be between 9 inches by 12 inches and 22 inches by 28 inches, and they must use two dimensional art mediums only. The deadlines for entries will vary, however, mid April is a good estimate. Posters that win at the state level will be entered in the national competition held in May.

Children’s Art Contest Number Two – Youth Wildlife Art Contest

If your child is interested in hunting or wildlife then they may be interested in entering the National Rifle Associations Youth Wildlife Art Contest. This is an annual event that accepts entries from kids in grades one through 12. Students can attend private, public, or home schools and still be eligible for this contest. The deadline for entries is the beginning of October with the 2006 deadline being October 3. There are four age categories for prizes. Category I will be for 1st through 3rd graders, category II for 4th through 6th graders, Category III for 7th and 9th graders, and Category IV for 10th through 12th graders. Several cash prizes will be awarded in each category.

Students are only allowed to submit one entry. The artwork can use any two dimension art medium, as long as it is on an 8 ½ inch by 11 inch paper, or on an 11 inch by 14 inch paper. You don’ need to mat the art but you can if you want. Art work will be judged on its composition, realism, creativity, and effort. For more information about this competition you can visit the following website: http://www.nrahq.org/youth/wildlife.asp.

Children’s Art Contest Number Three – Annual Arbor Day National Poster Contest

The National Arbor Day Foundation is another organization that hosts an annual poster contest intended to inspire children. This competition is open to fifth graders across the national and last year more than 75,000 fifth graders participated in this event. If you are a teacher or a home school teacher and you want your class or child to participate in this event you can request a free Activity Guide for this year’s poster contest from http://www.arborday.org/kids/postercontest. This free guide will include lesson plans that center on the importance of tress, and they will include lessons for the following subjects: art, geography, social studies, and national science. Prizes for this contest include Savings Bonds, awards, teacher prizes, and a trip to Nebraska City, Nebraska for the awards ceremony. For more information about this contest please visit the National Arbor Day Foundation’s website.

Choosing the Sex of Your Baby

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The topic of choosing the sex of your baby has been of interest to many people. I myself have been interested in conceiving a boy. To learn more on this topic, I  read the book "How to Choose the Sex of Your Baby" by Landrum B. Shettles.  This book was informative and very easy to understand.   Because of the success I have attained from this book, I have decided that a review of this book shall be in order to help others in my situation.

People have various reasons for wanting to have a child of a certain sex.  There can be medical or genetic reasons.  Or, some people may have had several girls and would now like to have a boy.  Whatever the reasons are,  Dr. Landrum B.  Shettles describes how to do so in this book.

This book begins by describing several medical aspects.  First, there are two types of sperm.  The "y" sperm which conceives a boy, and the "x" sperm which conceives a girl.  Y sperm is very fast swimming, but small and weak.  X sperm is slow swimming, but much larger and stronger.  

Dr. Shettles describes timing is the key. If you wish to conceive a boy, you must try to conceive within 2 days of ovulation.  This is because the egg will already be present so that the fast swimming y sperm can get to it faster.  But if you want a girl, you should have intercourse as much as 5 days before ovulation.  This is because the y sperm is weak and would have died off before the egg is present.  But the strong, slow swimming x sperm can survive this long.

Dr. Shettles then describes how to chart your ovulation schedule and recommends doing this for several months before conception.  Dr. Shettles also goes over several other means of adding to the success of conceiving the sex of your choosing.  This includes basal body temperature, what types of clothing to wear, and something you can consume to help at your task.  To find out what that is, you're just going to have to read the book!  

The book also has a large section depicting why some people just can't have a child of a certain sex.  You must read the book to learn if you fall into any of these categories.  There is an awful lot of things that many people are not aware of.

This book was probably the most informative book I have ever read.  And, I must say, it worked for me!  I was so happy with my results, that I lent out the book to several of my friends who also obtained the results they wanted.  Please be forewarned that you really must read this book before you attempt it.  All of the information contained within it has been medically proven.  There is so much you can learn from it.  i recommend it to anyone who has an interest in this topic.  I give it my highest ratings.  

You can purchase "How to Choose the Sex of Your Baby" by Landrum B. Shettles at any retail bookstore for $13.95

The History of Photography

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Capturing and commemorating precious moments in time has been a need for humans since ancient times. All over the world Prehistoric men have meticulously painted countless cave walls depicting either hunting and sporting events or other significant moments of their time. Later civilizations across the globe operated in similar fashions constructing either elaborate paintings or laborious sculptures. Each painting or sculpture afterward would strive to appear more and more detailed as if attempting to attain that life-like quality of each moment being projected. Battlefield paintings are littered throughout countless history books and journals in multiple languages with the sole purpose of endeavoring to convey a message in which words alone could not express. It is impossible to imagine how much information has been lost in translation throughout time without the truly marvelous invention of the camera and photography. If important events such as the signing of the Declaration of Independence or the pilgrim's first Thanksgiving feast with Native Americans had been captured on film would they hold more important places in the minds and hearts than they do now? People may never know, but the importance and raw power of photography cannot be denied. Whether viewing a portrait or just a moment caught in time, never has the imagination been captured nor have emotions been pulled to the surface as by the captivating image of a photo.

It is important and necessary to understand and explore the origins, the historical figures, and advancements involved in photography's history before people can appreciate just how far this field moved and exceeded all expectations.

"Photography" is derived from the Greek words photos ("light") and graphein ("to draw"). The word was first used by the scientist Sir John F.W. Herschel in 1839. It is a method of recording images by the action of light or related radiation, on a sensitive material (Bellis, n.d.). Photography has played a crucial role in various societies the world over not only as an intricate art form but also as a significant part in our way of life. From its early beginnings to its key figures of inventors and innovators who ushered in the critical and the amazing technical advancements which have made photography the phenomenon it is today.

William M. Ivins was Curator of Prints at the metropolitan Museum of Art in New York from 1916 until 1946 and published a documentary on photography in 1953 which distinguished between the relationship of traditional techniques of hand-drawn printmaking (the woodcut, metal and wood engravings and lithograph) and photography. Ivins noted that historically, printmaking was not usually practiced as an art form as they are practiced today, but as a means of distributing visual information. Ivins argued that once you begin to examine prints (or pictures) in functional terms you discover that without them very few modern sciences would exist; technologies, archaeologies, and ethnologies. Each of these is dependent upon information conveyed by exactly repeatable pictorial statements (Crawford, 1948).

The idea of photography existed long before the camera was invented. The human urge to produce pictures that amplified the faculty of memory by capturing time is at the theoretical base of photography. Artist and inventors have sought after ways to expedite the picture making process and ultimately concentrated on how to repeatedly capture an image directly formed by light since ancient times. Around the fifth century the Chinese philosopher Mo Ti discovered that light reflecting from an illuminated object and passing through a pinhole into a darkened area would form an exact, but inverted, image of that object, offering a prototype of the pinhole camera. By the 10th century the Arabian mathematician Alhazen demonstrated how the pinhole could be an instrument and that images formed through the aperture became sharper when the opening was made smaller.

Leonardo da Vinci noted in 1490 the earliest surviving description of the camera obscura (dark chamber), which was a device designed to reproduce linear perspective. This was a prototype of the photographic camera and essentially a large dark room in which an artist physically entered. Light would emit through a small hole in one of its four walls and produce a distinct but inverted image onto the opposite wall which could be traced. The camera obscura was popular with artist because it could automatically modify a scene by compressing form and emphasizing tonal mass according to pictorial standards (Hirsch, 2000). In 1589 it was discussed that the use of mirrors could theoretically reverse the image that was reflected backwards into the camera obscura which is now the basis for modern-day single lens-reflex camera. By the 17th century camera obscuras were in frequent use by artist and also made portable in the form of sedan chairs (Bellis, n.d.).

Early in the 18th century the rising commercial class longed to procure the status of being commemorated in much the same pictorial style as of the rich. Multiple inventors had commercial incentives to harness the camera to portrait making, as less training would decrease the costs of making a picture. Machine-based systems for multiple copy production were on the threshold of replacing the outdated handmade methods. One such machine was the physionotrace invented by Gilles Louis Chretien in 1786. This device combined two inexpensive methods of portraiture, the cutout silhouette and the engraving. The operator would trace a profile on a glass using a stylus connected to an engraving tool which duplicated the gestures of the stylus onto a copper plate at a smaller scale. Although it was not a camera, the physionotrace reduced portrait making to a systematic mechanical operation and inevitably expanded the portrait market to the middle class.

In regards to the actual process of photography it was in 1727 Professor J. Schulze surmised that by mixing chalk, nitric acid and silver into a flask images would begin to appear in the presence of sunlight. He noticed a darkening on the sides of the flask which were exposed to direct sunlight and purely by accident was the initial creation of the first photo-sensitive compound (Bellis, n.d.).The first to experiment with in the production of images was Thomas Wedgwood from 1800 to 1802 using white leather impregnated with silver nitrate. It was known at that time that most chemical compounds of silver darkened on exposure to light. Wedgwood was able to produce reversed impressions of objects but was unable to make his pictures permanent by removing the unused silver salts after exposure. Joseph Nicéphore Niépce was the next experimenter and in 1816, even though he was able to produce reversed prints on this material and faint pictures on it in a camera obscura, he had little more success due to the paper eventually darkening. In 1822 he directed his attention to the problem of sensitizing metal plates. Niépce discovered that by coating a pewter plate with a varnish he could produce copies of engravings by placing them in contact with strong light and his coated plates and enabled him to etch his plates and them for printing. This process was later improved by his partner Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre who, after Niépce's death in 1833, established a workable process by exposure to the vapor of heated mercury.

"I have found a way of fixing the images of the camera! I have seized the fleeting light and imprisoned it! I have forced the sun to paint pictures for me!" These were the historical words of L. J. M. Daguerre spoken to Charles Chevalier at his Paris optical shop and reflect the driving desire to make permanent images through the action of light. (Hirsch, 2000, 10). Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre, inventor of the first practical process of photography, was born near Paris, France on November 18, 1789. A professional scene painter for the opera, Daguerre began experimenting with the effects of light upon translucent paintings in the 1820s. In 1829, he formed a joint venture with Joseph Nicéphore Niépce to improve the process Niépce had developed to take the first permanent photograph in 1826-1827.

After several years of experimentation, Daguerre developed a more convenient and effective method of photography, naming it after himself - the daguerreotype. In 1839, he and Niépce's son sold the rights for the daguerreotype to the French government and published a booklet describing the process. The invention was announced to the public on August 19, 1839 at a meeting of the French Academy of Sciences in Paris and his process was used widely in Europe and in the United States. Daguerre's daguerreotype process required long exposure time and made portraits virtually impossible until in 1840 John Goddard cut exposure time in half by treating the plates with bromine and iodine. With this innovation and the development of new lens designs, made possible the idea commercial portraiture. The daguerreotype process went out of use to the general public in the 1850s due to tight patent restrictions which affected application and eventually became obsolete by 1860 (Coe, 1978).

During this time an English scientist, William Henry Fox Talbot, independently devised a camera based imagining process in 1834 using the light sensitivity of silver salts. He invented the salted paper print which was a printing-out process that allowed him to make images without the use of a camera of botanical specimens engravings, pieces of lace, and even solar photomicrographs. By first coating sheets of ordinary writing paper with sodium chloride, letting them dry, and then recoating them with silver nitrate he formed silver chloride which was more highly sensitive to sunlight and reduced exposure time tremendously producing spontaneous images without chemical development. In 1841 Talbot accidentally discovered a process for negative development that he patent under the name calotype. In this process, an exposed sheet of iodized paper was transferred to a darkroom and brushed with gallic acid until a potent negative was developed. It was then that the negative was contact-printed onto unexposed, salted paper in sunlight to form a positive. This process formed the foundation for silver-based photographic systems still in use today.

The negative-positive principle of the calotype process designed by Talbot and the popular daguerreotype were both truly remarkable for their times but not without limitations. A new process evolved from both but without their limitations and would eventually take their place and was referred to as wet-plate photography. It was a photographer's axiom that paper negatives advantages were outweighed by their disadvantages with their resolution limited of fine detail. It was realized that if glass was used the problem would not exist but it simply was not absorbent to carry the coating of light sensitive salts. In 1839 Sir John Herschel was able to produce an image on glass by precipitating silver chloride onto a glass plate and was later perfected by Abel Niépce de Saint-Victor in 1847 by using egg white albumen coated on the glass providing a suitable medium for sensitive salts. A new material for development called collodion was discovered by Frederick Scott Archer in 1851 formed through dissolving a form of gun-cotton in ether. A glass plate was covered with collodion and plunged into silver nitrate and then the wet-plate was loaded into and exposed in a camera. Immediately after exposure the plate was developed, fixed and washed. The collodion negative could record fine detail and subtle tones and also had the advantage of being more highly sensitive than either the daguerreotype and calotype processes. In contrast the gelatin dry plate was first developed by Dr. Richard Leach Maddox who used gelatin instead of ether vapor of the wet collodion plate due to his poor health. It was later perfected by Charles Bennett in 1878 by reducing exposure times drastically, retaining their properties, being easily manufactured and very sensitive.

Pertaining to film and photo depth, one of the most popular photographic novelties which went on display at the Great Exhibition in London in 1851 was the stereoscopic photograph. The mildly dissimilar vantage points provided by the eyes are combined in the brain to give an image in depth. If two photographs of a scene are taken from points of view separated by two about two inches, and are then viewed so that each eye receives only the image appropriated to it, the result is an apparently three-dimensional picture. This principle was first introduced by Sir Charles Wheatstone in 1832 but was not until Sir David Brewster in 1849 introduced an improved device using lenses that the stereoscope became really practical (Coe, 1977).

Another important milestone in photography is that of the photography of action. The early photographic processes were all relatively insensitive. It was impossible at that time to record moving objects without producing a blur on the plate. Specially designed lenses were utilized by Thomas Skaife in his cameras to pass 200 times more light than conventional landscape lenses. Skaife's 'Pistolgraph' camera was introduced in 1856 and after adding the required lens and a shutter powered by a rubber band allowed permitted exposures sufficiently brief to stop the action of slowly moving subjects. Sir John Herschel's name is synonymous with the term 'snapshot' which describes an instantaneous photograph. But it was Eadweard Muybridge who pioneered the process of motion picture photography using gelatin dry plates in the 1880s and eventually led the likes of Professor Etienne Marey and Ottomar Anschutz to document true animals in action. These individuals were often referred to as chronophotographers (Rosenblum, 1997).

Around the mid 1890s public interest began to peak over the publication of the results of chronophotography. This brought about the demand for the development of hand held cameras to replace the traditional and larger stand cameras. Even though small hand held 'detective' cameras were in circulation they were quite awkward and still required multiple cumbersome pieces of hardware that were an inconvenience to everyone but the most enthusiastic of photographers. Even though the dry plate relieved photographers from making their own plates they still had to process and print them requiring knowledge and necessary skills for the dark room. This was answered by the American bank clerk George Eastman who invented the Kodak camera. Eastman felt that photography was too complicated and stated that; "It seems that one ought to be able to carry less than a pack horse load."(Coe, 1978, 13). Though there were some 'detective' cameras that were reasonably small most were bulky. He developed a rolling mechanism and combined it with lightweight sensitive material and decided to construct a camera that would be small and simple to use. In 1888 the first Kodak camera with a celluloid roll-film was developed.

Around the 1850s, photography was viewed by some as a new medium of communication and became hard to discern between art and industry. Eventually it became apparent that photography was considered a business with a widening division of purpose between amateurs and professionals. The latter were motivated by market forces to develop profitable products while the amateurs pursued their personal inclinations and claimed the moral high ground of art, beauty, truth, relegating the professionals to the corner of crass commercialism. Many of England's most notable photographers abandoned their amateur status and turned professional. During the 19th century realism became a force in the arts. Realism sought to counter the idealized subject matter of Romantic and Neoclassical painting with direct and frank views of everyday life. As the public became acquainted with photography's veracity and ability to give significance to everyday experiences, their expectations about how reality should be represented and what subjects were worthy of depiction changed. Ironically photographs became artistic when they looked less photographic by utilizing retouching methods to appear more like a painting. Paintings, on the other hand, were thought to be more artistic if they portrayed more photographic detail. This contradiction resulted in neither medium being valued for its own inherent qualities. (Hirsch, 2000).

The evolution of the camera has advanced beyond all expectations from the digital mega pixel masterpieces we have today to their most earliest ancestors, the camera obscura. Dating back to ancient times, the camera obscura consisted of a pinhole in a contained box. The pinhole would allow light to pass through and project an image on the adjacent wall thus allowing artist to trace the captured image as it appeared at that moment. Niépce, Wedgewood, Talbot are credited with the first portable camera obscuras but it was Daguerre who designed the first cameras to be commercially produced on any practical scale.

The folding box camera, T. Ottewill's folding camera, and portable "dark tent" cameras all gave way to user friendly handhelds such as the momentograph and detective cameras in 1886, the unusual photosphere with its bell-shaped body and hemispherical shutter, the American Tom Thumb camera in 1889, and the Key camera. These box-form cameras eventually became less popular after 1890 and were replaced with collapsing and folding strut cameras.

Kodak sold these forms of cameras in which glass plates or roll films could be used. For a brief time a type of camera was introduced to appear as anything but a camera. The first 'concealment' camera to receive any publicity was Thompson's Revolver camera in 1862 which resembled a pistol. Another was Marion's Parcel Detective camera of 1885 which was supplied in brown paper and tied with a string to appear as a normal parcel and Ross's Photo scope in 1892 mimicked binoculars. Kodak cameras are credited in 1885 with introducing the ingenuity and the marketing of film development roll-film designs. In 1908 still photography was made practical by Audobard and Baradat with 35-mm film due to its small size and handling convenience. The development of Kodachrome, the first multi-layered color film took place in 1936 as did the development of Exakta which pioneered 35 mm single-lens reflex (SLR) cameras. In 1963 Polaroid developed the first instant color film while Instamatic was released by Kodak. Also in this year Nikon released the first purpose-built underwater camera thus changing the way the world viewed oceanography. As the world approached the millennia major advances in the field of computer technology swept the many nations and major advances in film development also transpired in the field of photography. Computer programs such as Adobe Photoshop was released to the public in 1990 and changed the way photography was perceived by allowing users to edit their own pictures. In 1992 Kodak introduced PhotoCD which permitted users to store their pictures on compact disc. In light of this new technology and with the arrival of digital cameras Kodak ceased all production of film cameras. And most notably, the cutting edge technology most familiar to the public is that of camera phones. These multifunctional cameras hit the market from Japan in 2000 and are changing the field of photography and availability unlike anything seen before (Greenspun, 2007).

Through the course of time and painstaking trial and error, the expansive field of photography had grown immeasurably from the exclusive dreams of a handful of visionaries determined to rival the skilled painters and bring to the public what only was available to the wealthy at that time. Cameras and photography have transformed from an artful pastime into an essential way of life touching it in all aspects the public could have never envisioned nor can foresee what will be next in its future.

Through presenting the history of photography in this research it is paramount to stress the importance and necessary to understand the origins of photography and appreciate the many designs that the camera has undertaken since its birth. The field of photography would have undoubtedly fell short in practical use, technological discoveries, and the art community would most likely have suffered a tremendous amount without the inventors and innovations of its past. The advancements involved in photography's history are all but unparalleled in its ingenious technology and reigns as a true marvel for all inventions. Far though as foreign lands may be and alien that other cultures may seem, with a better appreciation of photography our world could be closer captured instantly in snapshot.

References

Bellis, M. Historyof Photography and the Camera. Retrieved June 24, 2008, from www.about.com

Web site: http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blphotography.htm

Coe, B. (1977). TheBirth of Photography: The Story of the Formative Years 1800-1900. New York: Taplinger Publishing Company.

Coe, B. (1978). Cameras: From Daguerreotypes to Instant Pictures. New York: Crown Publishers.

Crawford, W. (1948). The Keepers of Light: A History and Working Guide to Early Photographic Processes. Dobbs Ferry, NY: Morgan and Morgan

Greenspun, P. (2007, January). History of Photography Timeline. Retrieved June 24, 2008, from

http://photo.net Web site: http://photo.net/history/timeline

Hirsch, R. (2000). Seizing the Light: A History of Photography. Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill.

Rosenblum, N. (1997). A World History of Photography. New York, NY: Abbeville Press.

Wildlife Photography: Tips to Learn the Basics of Wildlife Photography

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If you really want to learn the art of wildlife photography, then you should be aware of the basics of wildlife photography. It is rightly said that wildlife photography is one of the most challenging but rewarding hobby or career. It takes honest practice, persistence and hard work to master the real art of wildlife photography.

For mastering wildlife photography you have to have the basic knowledge of camera handling. As majority of the photos you take will be captured with the help of telephoto lens. This will test your patience and dedication as you have to wait a much longer time for the animal to come in the range and taking right pictures through right angles before that wild animal leaves from the site. Many of the times the animals you want to shoot will be yards away from you so that you have to take your pictures with more precision and care with zoom lenses.

While shooting wildlife you always have to watch out for minute movements happening around you. And for that purpose you have to be attentive for the longer time. The sunlight also plays a very important role in taking these wildlife pictures. For this purpose your camera should have the proper adjustments according to the various angles of sunlight so that pictures will be much clearer without any fuzz.

Also wildlife photography is all about capturing a particular moment of the wildlife. It makes or breaks your photography style. Many of the best wildlife photographers out there are really skillful in shooting the exact speed and momentum of the particular animal they are watching. But to be the best wildlife photographer out there you should first master the basics and you can begin this process by starting to shoot your own home pets. If you learn to shoot their natural movements and habits in their natural style then you can say that you are ready for outdoor wildlife photography.

There are no shortcuts to learn the basics of wildlife photography. Rather you have to practice it religiously and with full devotion. You should have to pay a special attention to your cameras. You have to take care that your camera has a quick shutter speed which is very necessary to take more than one shot as you roam around the wildlife to take pictures. In this type of photography most of the times you have to follow your subject to shoot many pictures at a time in one shot. This process is mainly known as "panning" which consists of taking faster pictures in one snap as you mover closer to a particular animal you want to shoot.

Thus wildlife photography is all about your patience, persistence and shooting skill where you need to wait a longer time to take the perfect picture. But at the end of the day it is also the most satisfying art where you get the really thrilling and enjoyable experience to cherish for.

Baby Photos and the Art of Photography

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"Seize the Moment" This is one of my favorite sayings. How often do we take advantage of the MOMENT? The moment is instantaneous. What happens right now will not happen again, ever! Will you remember the moment?

Photography is the art of capturing an image of that moment. It could be a face, a plant or a mountain. It could be something that will be there tomorrow but will look different or it could be something that won't be seen again. I read in a comic book once of a conversation between a father and son. The young son asked his father why old photos were always in black and white and new photos were in color? His father said there was always color film in the old days, but the world was only in black and white then! It was funny but some of our most famous photography "artist" worked in black and white such as Ansel Adams. He and so many others were artists that couldn't make up their work but had to capture it at the right instant of time.

I was going through some photos with my wife the other day. Some of them would take my breath away. They were images captured in time of babies in our family. Some of these babies are now 5, 8, 10, 14, 17 years of age. They are my children, nephews and nieces. Some of them are of my wife and her sisters. They're baby pictures! They are an instant caught in time. They were either taken by my in-laws or given to them as gifts. They may not have been present at the time the photo was taken but they had that image of that instant in time to carry with them until they died. These images were no different than the images that Ansel Adams gave me as a gift when he photographed San Francisco bay where the Golden Gate Bridge is before it was built. He gave me a memory that I could not have had otherwise. My family and my sister-in-laws' families gave my mother -in-law and father-in-law memories that they would never have had if it weren't for photography.

Even if you aren't a great photographer, a picture is still worth a 1,000 words. When a newborn baby comes home from the hospital and the family and extended family come by to see him or her, what comes out? Of course, the cameras come out and start snapping. I learned two schools of thought from photographers that I took courses from. One was in a roll of 36 exposures, 34 better be the top quality photos that you intend to sell. The other photographer taught that in a roll of 36 exposures, expect 2-3 quality photos that are worthy of selling. What I learned from this is spend your time taking posed photos but keep snapping for candid photos.

If you are taking photos of babies or children, take your time for both types of photos. I personally do not like posed photography but that's me. I prefer to capture a child that is at play trying to solve a problem or just being natural. I like the expressions when they are deep in thought or interacting with other children. I found a photo of my son that I took through a car window when he was five holding his hand up with his fingers stretched out. That photo is so memorable to me because I sent it to my mother before she passed away. It was exactly the same photo that my mother took of me when I was five years old.

May I suggest that you seriously consider studying photography to get a better understanding of the capabilities of using a camera properly? If you are just starting out, you need to start with the basics and work from there. Here is a good site to learn various aspects of photography from: http://www.photographytips.com/ For some detailed photography, study someone like Ansel Adams and look at this website: http://www.anseladams.com/