Recently in Photography Category

Several recent experiences have caused me to have concerns about quality. Editing chapters for book to be published soon, smart clothes and wearable technology, a major difficulty has been image quality too much use of digital cameras without the users understanding that it is always best to use as higher quality as possible. This is inevitably against the background of manufacturers saying you can take 1,000s of pictures on a 1Mb card yet I would normally take about 39 on same sized card! The beauty of digital is that can use a card again and again so why take poor quality pictures? Leave your camera on high quality or better still RAW. It is always time consuming or occasionally impossible to reshoot so better to do it right first time, unfortunately this is something that atcaeologists seem unable to do if the recent database for bioarchaeology looking at bones is anything to go by. Even the simplest of proper photographic set-ups could have achieved good results instead of out of focus or images with knsufficient depth of field. Again another example of the need for photography to be a key skill addressed in science degrees.

Dragons from the Catalonian street-arts company Sarruga invaded Derby streets on Saturday evening to celebrate the Westfield Shopping Centre opening. Thousands of people including many families turned out to see the parade of Dragons as they made their way down from 'The Spot', on London Road, down through the streets into the Market Square for a final fight between St George and the Dragon then a few fireworks.

More photographs from the Dragon parade are at http://www.cladonia.co.uk/derby

Having recently had cataract operations on both eyes this has led a number of losses and gains. This is from the perspective of someone who has worn glasses since the age of 5 except for a 17 year period wearing soft contact lenses soon after they first cames out.

On the plus side I don't have to wear glasses anymore (Big cheer) except for reading, and yes I can see one of everything rather than multiple versions of text and objects (This made watching snooker especially odd!). The cost of glasses is less my normal glasses cost upwards of £300 plus reading glasses £250! Now two reading pairs with new frames £200 a massive difference.

On the negative side I have lost my close-up vision, for someone who was very shortsighted (-10 and -11 dioptres for those in the know e.g. free eye test territory!) this is useful without glasses is like using a hand lens threading needles was always a doddle. This is probably also where my interest in close-up photography came from as in many ways it is this ability to see what the naked eye can't normally see that has always fascinated me. Whether it is the structure of a moth's eye (see photograph to left) or poppy seeds (see earlier post) whenever you examine something that close there is always something new and unexpected to be found.

Oh by the way my next purchase is in optics is going to be a hand lens.

I like creating photographs for their own sakes but they are very useful to communicate learning principles as they can remind students of concepts and ideas, i.e. they can act as memory triggers. The spiral, see image of a gourd tendril, can be used in support of the learning achieved through reflection and improving practice being a spiral rather than a circle which implies you end back where you started, not ideal if want to develop as a professional or student.

There is an aspect to designing and building interactive learning objects that over complicates leading away from simple learning objectives. A learning objective or learning outcome for module may require a more complex design but when you break a module down to individual lectures and then down to individual points in a lecture then these require simple interactive elements that put across single concepts or ideas or parts of ideas.

These are more likely to be the single photograph or two side by side, the rollover comparing photographs or building a diagram sequentially, the drag and drop, the single question about something. Here the learning activity should be simply defined.

The lecture or learning sequence should be a carefully designed experience for the learner made up of individual snippets of learning that build up to a whole. If an activity or object is overcomplicated the learner will not know what they are meant to do with it.

An example of a learning object is my use of stop start sequence to highlight problems of naming for changes in words associated with colour in photography. Black body radiator