Over Exposure
By Teresa Canelas
15 June 2008
From the earliest times, photography has been developed in parallel with other plastics arts. A great number of photographers began as painters, for instance Daguerre, Stelzner or Nadar, not to mention the impressionists Aaron Sharf or De DeVallier.
But out of all impressionists the one that was able to capture the visual contribution of photography was Edgar Degas.
In 1890's a group of o photographers decided to call themselves as picturialists, influenced by impressionist painters to create soft tones, shadows and "flou" aspects. To achive that aspect they seemed to use a very rudimentary lenses(1), although at that time the optical evolution of lenses was already established.
The rules of compositions were inspired on paintings of that time and focused on the education of look, they seeked for harmony of line, volumes and plans, for the simplicity of themes and sharpness, absolutly without detail.
Everybody who used a camera knows that aperture of a camera allows the photographer to control the light entering the camera, by making variations of that light one can alter the brightness of a picture. The shutter speed is another way to control light by means of how long the light comes in and exposure is the amount of light that a photographer allows to enter a film.
What happens if you allow too much light into your film?? What if you choose a very high ASA/ISO film ( such as 400,800,1600,3200, etc...) and expose it to such amount of light, by means of using an aperture shutter speed and exposure time as if you were using a very low ASA/ISO film in a very bright day?
I did it and I am still amazed with the results. I got an quality of pictures that reminds me of impressionist paintings: full of shadows, texture, contours, sharpness. I got pictures that are over exposed and I don't consider them as an error instead I consider them as photoimpressionism!
Do you dare to do it?
(1) those lenses were called, at that time, as artists lenses and the result of that process was known as noble impressions.
