Photographer Chris Grange was the fifth artist to contribute to the San Antonio Unfiltered project. Be sure to check out all of his photos from the disposable camera in the slideshow at the bottom.
Chris Grange is a native of Wyoming where he completed his Associate of Arts from Western Wyoming Community College. In the Fall of 2002, he transferred to the University of Texas at San Antonio, where he graduated with his Bachelor of Fine Arts in Photography in the Spring of 2005. Grange has assisted many photographers in San Antonio, and was an apprentice to Jim Landers of Landers Photography. Grange is currently pursuing a second degree in Computer Science at UTSA, and is expected to graduate in the Fall of 2015.
After gaining knowledge from his education, training and experiences, Grange started his own business in the Fall of 2006. While it started out as a photography business, he has transitioned it into a graphics based service combined with teaching. Using his knowledge of photography and graphics, as well as his passion for programming, Grange hopes to create tools and services for others to use.
When asked to participate in the Unfiltered project, Grange viewed it as an experiment. Taking this more experimental approach, Grange said that he “tried to find the exact settings of the disposable camera I was given. This is one of the film cameras, and it should follow a guiding principle in photography. Namely the ‘Sunny 16 rule’ for a proper exposure.”
Grange went on to describe his process by saying the he “took recordings of the average ambient lighting conditions. Now having a guideline, I needed more information on how to get a correct exposure. I first looked on the packaging and saw it was a 400 ISO film. Now I just needed to find out two more variables. I would assume the f-stop (or aperture) was a constant f-16 and the shutter speed is probably a 1/125th of a second (or 1/250th of a second). It is reasonable that if these settings are correct than my ambient lighting should expose ‘technically correct’, this is not accounting for a spot metered approach using the ‘Zone System’.”
Grange also used colored filter gels by Rosco and covered the opening where it would expose the film, creating a throwback, analogue version of Instagram. A CTO gel (Color Temperature Orange) and in some cases CTB (Color Temperatere Blue) was used to effect the color of the lighting conditions. “I took some artistic license with not trying to make all of the images technically correct. I also used a couple Neutral Density gels to help reduce the brightness of the scene,” Grange says.
When he found out that some of the close-ups were a little blurry, Grange said, “Funny enough after I took the blue bonnet photographs, I remembered how the minimum distance of focus affects the image. I laughed how I overlooked one of the basic principles because I was so into the exploration of the idea [of using a disposable camera]. It just goes to show that no matter the experience level, little things remind you to stay on your toes.”
Grange said that he took images of things that happen during my day and some places that he likes to go. “Some are fun and others just in the moment, but I had a very enjoyable time experimenting,” Grange explains. “The gels are wonderful when combined with a flash to add some warmth or add color variations to the image. There are larger gels for studio strobes, as these are used in theatrical lighting also. I will probably experiment with that once I see the baseline results from this test.”
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