THIS YEARS INFLUENCES

http://firstjonnyfinch.blogspot.com/

This is the link to to artist and such who have been big influences on me this year. They are mainly musicians, whether it be their music or their imagery they have played a huge part in the direction of my own photography. The rest of the influences are blogs and websites that have a strong link between music and photography which is a field that i am very interested in getting more involved professionally next year.
At the moment most of my ideas come from listening to music, when i listen to a piece of music my mind starts to work in a different way than it does normally and i start to see a whole load of images and stories. It's seems like a strange way of working but i think it works for me and i will carry on working this way next year along with looking for new ways to get ideas for producing interesting imagery.

CINEMATOGRAPHY

One aspect of photography that i would like to look into next year Cinematography (Director of Photography). Here is a bit of information into what this title entales.

"A cinematographer is one photographing with a motion picture camera (the art and science of which is known as cinematography). The title is generally equivalent to director of photography (DP or DoP), used to designate a chief over the camera and lighting crews working on a film, responsible for achieving artistic and technical decisions related to the image. The term cinematographer has been a point of contention for some time now; some professionals insist that it only applies when the director of photography and camera operator are the same person, although this is far from being uniformly the case. To most, cinematographer and director of photography are interchangeable terms."

"The English system of camera department hierarchy sometimes firmly separates the duties of the director of photography from that of the camera operator to the point that the DP often has no say whatsoever over more purely operating-based visual elements such as framing. In this case, the DP is often credited as a lighting cameraman. This system means that the director consults the lighting cameraman for lighting and filtration and the operator for framing and lens choices.

In the American system, which is more widely adopted, the rest of the camera department is subordinate to the DP, who, along with the director, has the final word on all decisions related to both lighting and framing.

The cinematographer typically selects the film stock, lens, filters, etc. to realize the scene in accordance with the intentions of the director. Relations between the cinematographer and director vary; in some instances the director will allow the cinematographer complete independence; in others, the director allows little to none, even going so far as to specify aperture and shutter angle. Such a level of involvement is not common once the director and cinematographer have become comfortable with each other. The director will typically convey to the cinematographer what he wants from a scene visually, and allow the cinematographer latitude in achieving that effect."

Everytime i watch a film i always notice the director of photography in the credits and wonder what it is they do exactly. Now i understand a little better.

The film that got me thinking about Cinematography recently was the film 'The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford' an incredibly well shot and well lit film.
Here is the trailer;



The Director of photography on this film was Roger Deakins who is a member of the American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) and the British Society of Cinematographers (BSC). He is also known for working on such classics as 'A Beautiful Mind'/'O Brother, Where Art Thou'/'The Big Lebowski'/'The Shawshank Redemption' and so many more