#5: My Top 3 Current Online Blog Inspirations

There are hundreds if not thousands more amazing personal photography blogs to be found all over the internet that emphasise stories, talents and breathtaking images!

One of the imagery blogs at the moment is 50mm, made by a creative director from Australia named Curtis. Curtis grew up in Sydney and studied television production, learned interactive design with fire fashion, and now continues his work and passion in the City of Tokyo.

For those of you who enjoy a wide contrast of black and white still photography along with colour moments of events and nature, this blog is definitely worth checking out!

His blog contains photographs mostly based around his current home in Tokyo, and images the user took during travels. The reason I enjoy this blog is that nearly every picture depicts a story in that person’s life and every picture is taken from a completely different aspect or physical angle. Here are just some of many of my favourite images from the 50mm blog.

1.) T H E   L I T T L E   R O A D – P A R T  2

2.)  R A I N Y   S E A S O N

The Big Picture, is another one of my currently admired online photography blogs.  Created by Leanne Burden Seidel (a picture editor at the Boston Globe since 1994 on page 1, the Metro, Travel and special projects), her blog portrays amazing shots by other photographers of incredible and colourful events that are updated quite frequently.  This blog varies from every aspect of photography from nature to war zone images.  Here are just a few of the most moving images on Seidel’s Big Picture blog.

P E R I L I O U S   C R O S S I N G (Oct 05, 2015) Taken by Craig F. Walker

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1 0   Y E A R S   A F T E R   H U R R I C A N E   K A T R I N A (Aug 27, 2015) Taken by Lloyd Young

A N A M I L I A (Sept 22, 2015) Taken by Jens Kalaena/EPA

And lastly, the final blog that I find extremely helpful in terms of learning how to take professional photographers and enter upcoming competitions is IHeartFaces. The site shares free online tutorials where

people can learn tips and tricks of how to not only take great photos but also to successfully edit. You can learn skills such as how to capture poses of people, how to use Photoshop and the blog also provides lighting tutorials.

If you have any recommendations you’d like to share of other photography blogs please make sure to leave a comment!

 

 

#4: My Favourite Travelling Photographs of 2015.

During my travels over the years I got to visit some amazing countries and places, and naturally, I had to bring my favourite Nikon camera along with me to capture the beautiful scenery I got blessed to see. I always enjoy taking pictures of incredible landscapes and nature when I occasionally get the chance here in Ireland or of course when travelling, so here I’ve shared with you some of my much-loved photographs taken up until 2015.

1.) This picture was taken in the beautiful Yosemite National Park in California USA during the summer.

My friends and I climbed the steepest mountain I think I will ever come across this day but it led to the most amazing view of any waterfall I have yet seen.

2.) This is where we ended up at the end of our journey up to Yosemite Falls. The waterfall dropped to 2,425 feet down and is among one of 20 highest waterfalls in the world. It was definitely worth the long hike.

4.) S a u s a l i t o– California                                             

This was the day me and my friend took the golden gate Ferry past the San Francisco Famous Golden Gate Bridge to the beautiful island of Sausalito. It was full of colourful hillside buildings and boat houses along the border of the shoreline. The island holds only a small community of approximately 7,000 people and is famous for is definitely a large tourist attraction because of its beautiful boat side scenery. We came across some ‘hippy-like outdoor art’ while we were here, as you can tell from the expressive picture.

 

5.) C H I N E S E T E M P L E- Genting Highands, Malaysia                    

During my visit to Malaysia in September 2015, I got to experience the most colourful and inspiring Buddhist temples in the mountains of Genting Highlands.

 

 

6.) P A L  A C E O F V E R S A I L L E S-Paris                                                          

In early February, I decided to visit the Palace of Versailles on my last day in in France. The  ‘Chaeau de Versilles’ has been on UNESCO’s world heritage list for almost 30 years, and you have not visited this place while in Paris you are certainly missing out. The history behind the palace is quite fascinating, and being a third level student I was able to visit          around the area free of charge. The site was created originally as a small hunting lodge for Louis XIII, until it was transformed and expanded by his son Louis XIV in 1682. Each of the three kings lived in this palace until the French Revolution, where the architecture and decor of the surroundings were emphasised  with even more beauty.

#3: Visual Perception and 3 Psychological Imagery Experiments

Did you know that almost 65% of our population are visual learners?  In our modern day and age and for centuries before that, visual information in content plays a huge role in every day life.

 

The difference now is that we have faster broadband, WiFi connections, cellular networks, and high resolution screens which allows for more effective visual learning abilities online.

What is more fascinating is that many studies have been carried out as to how the human interprets visual imagery or what information we are capable of soaking up simply from what we see. How does it benefit us to learn faster without reading written content? Well… Imagery has proven to help the brain transmit messages a lot faster, it can trigger emotions, and it can also help improve learning comprehension.

Scientific studies prove that..

• 90% of information that is transmitted to the brain is visual.
• Our eyes can register 36,000 visual messages per hour.
• We can get the sense of a visual scene in less than 1/10 of a second.
• Visuals are processed 60,000X faster in the brain than text.

Although, in contrast, visual perception is not always straightforward in terms of how we interpret exactly what we think we see. Ever wondered how we see things and how do we interpret what we see?

According to an interesting experiment called ‘the hollow face effect’ that was created by a psychologist named Richard Gregory, the brain can sometimes trick the mind into what it sees.

Do you see a normal face when the mask rotated to the hollow section?

He used the rotation of a Charlie Chaplin mask to “explain how we perceive the hollow surface of the mask as protruding based on our expectation of the world”. Our prior knowledge of a normal face is that the nose protrudes. So, we subconsciously reconstructed the hollow face into a normal face.

So the question is what does this truly prove? Well it shows how the human mind can dictate an illusion due to the depth perception of the eye.

Another famous physiological study that has being carried out is called the

Giambattista dell Porta      (1 5 3 5 – 1 6 1 5)

‘Binocular Rivalry Phenomenon’ and was discovered by Giambattista della Porta. This phenomenon occurs when our eyes perceives seperate images in each eye at the same time. One image dominates, while the other is suppressed but the dominate image can alternate periodically (this is known as dichoptic presentation).

The eye can see both images transition and the greatest example to show would be the effect of 3-D glasses. Have you ever seen a movie in the cinema while using 3-D glasses where images appear closer to you and move off the screen?

Numerous studies taken by psychologists also prove that similar colours are perceived as more harmonious and enjoyable unlike contrasting colours which are typically related to harshness or chaos.

The last influential experiment that I will talk about was created by Sanocki and Sulman in 2011, which was called the ‘colour relations experiment’. Their study portrayed how colour relations have an impact on short-term memory, in other words are we able to remember exactly what we just saw.

Four different trials were carried out during this study using soft and harsh colour palettes. In every trial, observers were shown two separate palettes and were asked to compare them both.

The patterns were presented in a predefined interval and in number of times in random planned patterns. In the end the observers were asked if the patterns shown were indifferent or unalike and were also expected to rate whether the pattern was harmonious or not.

Sanoki and Sulman’s study proved to show that people remembered colour patterns better when the colours were harmonious and that we can remember fairly high number of patterns at one time. The results also implied that humans can retain more information with similar colours rather than a combination of less colours.

Hmm it is quite interesting how the brain and eye works…

 

 

#2: The Impact and Dark Sides to Online Imagery

Pictures define and dominate almost every aspect of social media and the reasons are endless as to how and why they do. Here are just a few ways in which online photography can impact the use of social media in both a negative and positive light.

It may sound quite brief about what I mean when it comes to ‘how imagery impacts the use of the internet’ although, I’m sure many thoughts already come to one’s mind. In a positive light, I feel that there are many types of visual websites out there that can influence the artist in myself and many people out there who also look for creative inspiration and not to mention motivating humour.

We can find the most obvious examples being Instagram, Pinterest and Tumblr where you can simply find interesting images of well… anything that comes to mind, from your favourite food interests to wonderful and beautiful landscapes you might love to one day visit.

A lot of positivity and entertainment can be found on these websites along with countless others and Instagram would be quite a favourable place where I’d often visit to

T O P 2 0 I N S T A G R A M A C C O U N T S Y O U        M U S T S E E

find enjoyable and funny pictures that would effectively make my day sometimes.

These sort of websites allow all kinds of people and talent to be viewed by society in an intangible way which is quite phenomenal when thought about. Pictures can so easily be shared and spread over social media which can sometimes lead to viral attention-

This is why it is important for the likes of photographers to become publicized on social media websites, as it allows for them to share expression and complete freedom from their content by capturing moments and sharing it with the entire world, which in my opinion is quite incredible, especially when you’re truly passionate about the work you create.

So much can be said as to how photography can influence how people think or feel towards a picture online in any context. On an even deeper level of understanding how images can impact a persons mind there are psychological reasons of why it is dominated all over social media.

Professional work can be exposed and appreciated at the cost of nothing. For example, media press and viral images are one of the most interesting.

Strong images that have stories behind them, for example what news reporters portray online can cause upset and uproar in the minds of the public. Here are a few images that successfully gripped my attention as well as the worlds, when it came to a shocking in the moment pictures taken by news reporters.

“K O S O V O R E F U G E E S” ( 1 9 9 9 )

This first image was taken by a reporter named Carol Guzy who captured this moving picture of Kosovo refugees. The image portrays a two year old boy called Agim Shala who is being passed through a wired fence to be reunited with his family in Kukes, Albania. It is an extremely powerful photograph that became Guzy’s award winning photograph in 2000 as it touched many people around the world.

 

“T H E P O W E R O F O N E” ( 2 0 0 6 )

In 2006, Israeli authorities ordered the evacuation of illegal outposts, such as Amona. Oded Balilty is an Israeli photographer for the Associated Press who captured this extraordinary image of the evacuation that degenerated into violent and unprecedented clashes between settlers and police officers. “The power of one” image shows a brave woman rebelling against authorities and as you can expect the photograph became extremely controversial.

The brave woman in this image was a 16 year old Jewish settler  named Ynet Nili who claims this picture is wrongly represented as ‘art’ as she tries to stand up for the people of Israel. In contrast to the illusion of strength she holds here, she explains that shortly after this photo was taken, she was brutally beaten by the police. Nili perceived the photograph as being  “disgrace to Israel”. 

From these two strong images we learn that photographers have the unlimited power to capture and spread  gory war images or horrifying events all over the internet that might haunt the eyes of people who did not want to see it in the first place.

For the viewer it can hit emotions or imprint an image that can stay in the mind because of the dark side of the internet that is perhaps too easily available?

Traumatising images are constantly being spread and there are a countless amount of reasons that should dictate why it should not be so easily accessible. Deborah L . Davis has written an extremely interesting blog an how exposure to the dark side of online imagery, especially violence, can influence the unwanted thoughts of the viewer (for further information please follow this link: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/laugh-cry-live/201312/protect-your-brain-images-violence-and-cruelty).

 

 

 

 

#1. The First Ever Camera Invention

Joseph Nicéphore Niépce may be a familiar name to anyone who is a big fan of photography or artistic history. Niépce, was of course the infamous French experimenter who invented the earliest example of the very first visual camera.

1 7 6 5 – 1 8 3 3

In 1816, the French creator took what we now know as the ‘First Ever Photograph’ that remains the most influential and successful example of  to survive at this time. Unlike the technology advances we have today when it comes to digital photography, Niépce’s discovery of creating his very own camera came from the camera obscura (which in fact dates even further back to what the ancient Chinese and ancient Greeks used to create pictures).

T H E C A M E R A O B S C U R A

Using his small creation of a camera, Niépce in addition, used a piece of paper, coated with silver chloride in front of camera which gave the effect of darkening where it was exposed to light.

Are you maybe now a little more curious as to what the first ever photograph looks like?  Well-here it is…

T H E F I R S T E V E R P H O T O G R A P H     (Developed in 1826)

The image supposedly depicts a blurry view from an upstairs window at Niépce’s own home in the Burgundy region of France. Of course, it is quite difficult to make out, but this is due to the physical and chemical characteristics of the heliographic proccess which. The picture may not be perceived as the most interesting ‘First ever photograph’, but it definitely proves how much camera technology has evolved over the past generations before and during most of our time.

 

To cut across from the very beginning of photography to the current generation of its use, we can see many different changes of how it lives in our world, especially on social media (I talk further about this in my second blog entry). In our 21st century, nearly 89% of the worlds population own their own camera and the internet has made a powerful impact of how pictures can now be shared with others worldwide.

Now the process  of creating a picture takes only a minute, if not a second with the touch of a button to capture one moment. Printing images is accessible at nearly any store around you and nearly every digital technology has a high quality camera installed that portrays a picture just as you see it with your own eyes.

The dramatic difference is of course very obvious, but can you imagine taking a time machine back  to the 1800’s, where the process of one successful photo to be developed takes almost 20 years? We certainly have come a long way.