Stacy Pearsall - Combat Camera

Came across this interesting blog by Stacy Pearsall today courtesy of Scott Kelby.  I thought distance learning was a challenge but Stacy has made my recent decision to do a BA with the OCA look easy! 

I never heard of Combat Camera before and it certainly isn't for the faint hearted.  We all face challenges in our work and know the difficulties getting that 'shot' entail.  I find Stacy's work impressive especially when I consider the dangers and obstacles she faced. 

I particularly like the portrait shots.

Exercise 2: Focus at a set aperture

For this exercise I decided to use some decorative balls made out of dried plants and natural fibres from my living room.  I like the texture and ruggedness of these.  I lined the balls up with the smallest one in front to create some depth and then positioned myself and an angle so all three could be easily viewed.

Each shot was taken with an aperture of f5.3 at 75mm using my 18-105mm lens.  I prefer the shot where the focus is in the front plane as it draws you into the image giving you a sense of movement and greater depth.  Focus on the rear plane is my least favourite as I find the blurriness in the front distracting and unpleasing to the eye. 

Front focus

Mid focal point

Rear focus

Exercise 1: Focal length and angle of view

The notes for this exercise are confusing.  If you are using a digital camera the viewfinder magnification factor plays a role making it difficult to determine the standard focal length by looking through the lens and comparing it to what your other eye sees.

When I tried this 55mm seemed to result in similar sized objects. 

According to the instruction manual, the viewfinder magnification on my camera is .78 and the standard focal length is 35mm.  On a 35mm format camera the standard focal length is about 50mm. 

I took the following shots to show wide angle, standard focal length for my camera and telephoto. 

Standard focal length 35mm

Wide angle 18mm














Telephoto 70mm

50mm (objects appeared similar size)

How we read photographs

Today I have been reading Graham Clarke’s The Photograph and found the chapter 'How to read a photograph' particularly interesting.  As I have long suspected there is more to a photograph than initially meets the eye. 

Roland Barthes (1915-1980), the philospopher, cultural and literary theorist, suggests there is a distinction between the relative meaning of the different elements in a photograph – the denotative and the connotative.  Denotative is the literal significance of an element in a photograph i.e a chair, a car, a person.  Connotative is a second level of meaning “its signs are gestures, attitudes, expressions, colours and effects endowed with certain meanings by the practice of a certain society." They are codes and visual language that reflect the wider process of importance in a photograph. 

Barthes also establishes a further distinction in how we read a photograph.  There are two distinct factors in our relationships to the image.  The studium suggests a passive response to the image and the punctum allows for a critical reading. 

One of the most interesting images to look at in this context is Identical Twins by Diane Arbus in which seemingly identical twins turn out to be anything but on closer scrutiny.