Our goal in starting the group is a way to enjoy photography, while exploring the city. We don’t need to get hung up on the camera, it is to use whatever we have to create an image that is beautiful or meaningful.
The group is not meant to teach people how to use DSLRs (but there might be members who can do that), but to look at the subject and capture the image without having to overly manipulate the camera. You may have heard about the Diana project; think of this as a digital Diana project.
In the 1960s and company in the Great Wall Plastic Factory of Kowloon, Hong Kong made a cheap plastic camera, called the Diana. The Diana sold in the USA for about a dollar and was meant as an inexpensive giveaway or promotion. The camera had a plastic body and lens and took rolls of 120 film. Because the lens was so simple, it often produced soft, blurred, impressionistic-like images that were the opposite of images that came from high-end professional cameras. At the same time, photography started to gain recognition as an artform and photography was being offered as a course in art schools.
The natural inclination of a photography student is to think that a better camera produces better images. While a more professional camera might have certain bells and whistles that can make shooting with the camera easier or enable the photographer to do more, the basic framing and understanding of light is the same no matter what camera is used.
A popular project that was given to photography students was called the Diana assignment. Students were instructed to go out and buy a Diana (it was made under many other names as well) and expose one roll of film. Each student made a contact sheet and they compared the results in class. The lesson was meant to teach students that when everyone has the exact same, low-quality camera, beautiful images could be captured and it has nothing to do with owning a better or more expensive camera.
We hope that we can create assignments for ourselves and concentrate on the framing, the light and the timing, without worrying about which camera is better. That does not mean we have to use Diana cameras, use your phone, your high-end DSLR or an old film camera, the idea is to have fun.
We will discuss the first “assignments” in our WhatsApp group and then start shooting!
If you haven’t signed up yet, please send us a message and we will be happy to add you to the free Ashkelon Photography group.
