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Photography
Light, Lenses & Exposure
What each camera setting actually changes, and why.
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Aperture primarily controls which two things?
Photographers and the Pictures They Made
Ten names from the past century and a half, and what each of them is actually known for.
About this topic
Photography produced its canon quickly and unevenly. A medium barely two centuries old already has a set of names that turn up in every survey, and the reasons they are there vary enormously. Muybridge is remembered for settling a factual dispute. Adams is remembered for a technical system as much as for the pictures. Eggleston is remembered for winning an argument about whether colour could be serious at all. Several of the reputations are accidents of circumstance. Vivian Maier photographed Chicago for decades and showed the work to almost nobody; it surfaced when the contents of her storage lockers were auctioned. That kind of posthumous arrival is rarer in painting, where the objects are unique and get noticed, than in photography, where a life's work can sit undeveloped in a box.
Questions & answers
Photographers and the Pictures They Made: all 10 questions and answers
Every question in this quiz is listed below with its correct answer and the reasoning behind it. Play first if you would rather not see the answers — or read through as a study sheet.
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1Which photographer is associated with the idea of "the decisive moment"?
- A Robert Doisneau
- B Brassaï
- C Robert Frank
- D Henri Cartier-Bresson Correct
Answer: D. Henri Cartier-Bresson
Why: The phrase came from the English title of his 1952 book. He co-founded the Magnum agency in 1947 and worked almost entirely with a small rangefinder camera.
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2Ansel Adams is best known for photographing what?
- A Fashion for magazines
- B Industrial factory interiors
- C The landscapes of the American West Correct
- D New York street life
Answer: C. The landscapes of the American West
Why: With Fred Archer he devised the Zone System, a method of planning exposure and development to control the tonal range of a print. He was also a lifelong conservation campaigner.
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3The photograph known as "Migrant Mother" was taken by whom?
- A Imogen Cunningham
- B Dorothea Lange Correct
- C Margaret Bourke-White
- D Berenice Abbott
Answer: B. Dorothea Lange
Why: She made it in 1936 while working for the Farm Security Administration. The agency's photographers left tens of thousands of negatives that are now in public hands.
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4Eadweard Muybridge settled a long-running dispute by photographing what?
- A A galloping horse Correct
- B A falling drop of milk
- C A moving train
- D A lightning strike
Answer: A. A galloping horse
Why: His 1878 sequence showed that all four hooves leave the ground at once, at a point nobody had predicted. His later motion studies fed directly into early cinema.
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5William Eggleston is credited with helping establish what?
- A The photo-essay in weekly magazines
- B Aerial survey photography
- C The use of flash in portraiture
- D Colour photography as a serious art form Correct
Answer: D. Colour photography as a serious art form
Why: His 1976 exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art was widely attacked by critics. Colour was then associated with advertising and family snapshots rather than with art.
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6Diane Arbus is best known for which kind of work?
- A Sports action sequences
- B Architectural studies of skyscrapers
- C Portraits of people at the edges of American life Correct
- D Photographs of wilderness at dawn
Answer: C. Portraits of people at the edges of American life
Why: She worked largely with a square-format twin-lens camera. Its closer, straight-on framing became inseparable from how the pictures feel.
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7Robert Capa built his reputation photographing what?
- A Racing cars
- B War Correct
- C Ballet rehearsals
- D Volcanic eruptions
Answer: B. War
Why: He covered five conflicts, including the Normandy landings in 1944. He was one of the founders of the Magnum cooperative.
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8Vivian Maier's photographs became known in what way?
- A They were found in storage lockers after decades unseen Correct
- B She published them in a single late book
- C They were commissioned by a newspaper
- D They were shown first as film stills
Answer: A. They were found in storage lockers after decades unseen
Why: She worked as a nanny in Chicago and showed the work to almost nobody. She left more than a hundred thousand negatives, a large share of them never developed.
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9Sebastião Salgado is known for long documentary projects on which subjects?
- A Celebrity portraiture
- B Motor racing
- C Interior design
- D Labour, migration and the natural world Correct
Answer: D. Labour, migration and the natural world
Why: He trained and worked as an economist before turning to photography. His projects typically run for several years across dozens of countries.
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10Man Ray is associated with which technique of making images without a camera?
- A The cyanotype blueprint
- B The stereograph
- C The photogram Correct
- D The daguerreotype
Answer: C. The photogram
Why: He called his own versions rayographs, made by laying objects on photographic paper and exposing it to light. László Moholy-Nagy was working along the same lines at much the same time.
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Photographers and the Pictures They Made has 10 questions and takes about 7 minutes to finish. It is rated Hard and sits in our Photography category.
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