Glossary
Actual Texture - A surface quality that can be felt or touched .
Advertising - The act or practice of calling public attention to one's product, service, need, etc., especially by paid announcements in newspapers and magazines, over radio or television, or on billboards.
Aesthetic - Having to do with the pleasurable and beautiful as opposed to the useful or scientific.
Ambient Light - The available light completely surrounding a subject. Light already existing in an indoor or outdoor setting that is not caused by any illumination supplied by the photographer.
Ambrotype - An early type of photograph, made by placing a glass negative against a dark background.
Analogous Colours - Colours that are side-by-side on the colour wheel.
Archetype - In the psychology of Carl Jung, archetypes are the images, patterns, and symbols that rise out of the collective unconscious and appear in dreams, mythology, and fairy tales.
Art – The manifestation of human creativity.
Assemblage - A work of art made by constructing or linking found objects, rather than mounting them on a flat surface.
Background – Those things which seem most distant, as if in the back of the picture.
Backlighting - Light coming from behind the subject, toward the camera lens, so that the subject stands out vividly against the background. Sometimes produces a silhouette effect.
Balance - A principle of art using elements such as colour, line, and shape in a way that does not allow one area of an artwork to overwhelm the other area. There are three different types of balance: symmetrical, asymmetrical, and radial.
Bounce Lighting - Flash or tungsten light bounced off a reflector (such as the ceiling or walls) to give the effect of natural or available light.
Bracketing - Taking additional pictures of the subject through a range of exposures -- both lighter and darker -- when unsure of the correct exposure.
Calotype - An early negative-positive photographic process, patented by William Henry Talbot in 1841, in which a paper negative is produced and then used to make a positive contact print in sunlight.
Camera Angles - Various positions of the camera (high, medium, or low; and left, right, or straight on) with respect to the subject, each giving a different viewpoint or effect.
Camera Obscura - A darkened enclosure in which images of outside objects are projected through a small aperture or lens onto a facing surface.
Candid Pictures - Unposed pictures of people, often taken without the subject's knowledge. These usually appear more natural and relaxed than posed pictures.
Caricature - A picture, description, etc., exaggerating the peculiarities or defects of persons or things.
Cell Animation – Traditional animation technique where each frame is drawn and painted by hand on transparent sheets of plastic.
Claymation – A form of stop motion animation where plasticine clay is used for the animated objects.
Close-Up - A picture taken with the subject close to the camera -- usually less than two or three feet away, but it can be as close as a few inches.
Collage - From the French word coller which means to paste, it is the combination of various mediums through cutting and pasting to achieve a total artwork.
Complementary Colours - Colours that are opposite to each other on the colour wheel; for example, red and green.
Composition - The final product in the creation process. The structure or organization of a work when artists use the art elements and principles in their art. The pleasing arrangement of the elements within a scene. In photography - the main subject, the foreground and background, and supporting subjects.
Contrast - Achieved when an artist uses elements such as colour or shape to create a pairing of two very different things.
Cool Colours - These are hues such as blue, green, purple; these colours are often associated with things like rain, clouds, ice, grass, etc. Cool colours tend to recede into the background.
Coolhunting - Coolhunting is a term coined in the early 1990s referring to a new breed of marketing professionals, called coolhunters. It is their job to make observations and predictions in changes of new or existing cultural trends.
Criticism - The process of describing, analyzing, interpreting, and judging works of art; often incorrectly used to mean censuring or fault finding.
Critiques - These are oral or written discussions about the artwork of others. They offer direction and guidance to the artist, and foster artistic development and proficiency. When our work is critiqued, we discover how we can develop and improve as artists.
Cropping – This refers to printing only part of the image that is in the negative, slide or digital image, usually for a more pleasing composition. May also refer to the framing of the scene in the viewfinder.
Culture – A set of learned ways of thinking and acting that characterizes a decision-making human group. Also refers to the unique art, food, traditions, values and beliefs, and other characteristics that unify groups of people. Artists play an important role within a culture.
Cutout animation - A form of stop motion animation where pieces of shaped or cut paper are used for the animated objects.
Daguerreotype - An early photographic process with the image made on a light-sensitive silver-coated metallic plate.
Demographic - A statistic characterizing human populations (or segments of human populations broken down by age or sex or income, etc.). In marketing, a demographic is a portion of a population, especially considered as consumers.
Depth of Field - The amount of distance between the nearest and farthest objects that appear in acceptably sharp focus in a photograph. Depth of field depends on the lens opening, the focal length of the lens, and the distance from the lens to the subject.
Diffuse Lighting - Lighting that is low or moderate in contrast, such as on an overcast day.
Documentation - Artists document their work in order to provide a record of their intentions, inspiration, artistic process, and personal reflections.
Earth Works - This term describes art that is concerned with the natural environment. These works are rather large and are subject to the destructive power of nature. Materials for earth works can include stone, rocks, clay, plants, twigs, and even snow.
Elements of Art - Line, shape, colour, value, and texture.
Emphasis – This is the creation of a focal point within a work.
Environmental Art - These works of art can be found outdoors. Artists use the natural landscape as materials for creating their sculptures. The art becomes part of the natural landscape. Large works are sometimes called earthworks.
Existing Light - Available light. Strictly speaking, existing light covers all natural lighting from moonlight to sunshine. For photographic purposes, existing light is the light that is already on the scene or project, and includes room lamps, fluorescent lamps, spotlights, neon signs, candles, daylight through windows, outdoor scenes at twilight or in moonlight, and scenes artificially illuminated after dark.
Film - A light sensitive, photographic emulsion on a flexible, transparent base that records images or scenes.
Film Speed - The sensitivity of a given film to light, indicated by a number such as ISO 200. The higher the number, the more sensitive or faster the film. Note: ISO stands for International Standards Organization.
Filter - A coloured piece of glass or other transparent material used over the lens to emphasize, eliminate, or change the colour or density of the entire scene, or of certain areas within a scene.
Flash - A brief, intense burst of light from a flashbulb or an electronic flash unit, usually used where the lighting on the scene is inadequate for picture taking.
f-Number or f-Stop - A number that indicates the size of the lens opening on an adjustable camera. The common f-numbers are f/1.4, f/2, f/2.8, f/4, f/5.6, f/8, f/11, f/16, and f/22. The larger the f-number, the smaller the lens opening. In this series, f/1.4 is the largest lens opening, and f/22 is the smallest. F-stops work in conjunction with shutter speeds to indicate exposure settings.
Focal Length - The distance between the film and the optical centre of the lens when the lens is focused on infinity. The focal length of the lens on most adjustable cameras is marked in millimetres on the lens mount.
Font - A complete assortment of type all of one style and size.
Found Object - An object that an artist incorporates into sculpture or painting, and to which he/she has ascribed aesthetic merit or some other significance.
Frame - One individual picture on a roll of film. Also, tree branch, arch, etc., that frames a subject. In an animated film, this refers to an individual picture or drawing within the sequence.
Frame Rate – Refers to the number of individual frames that are created for each second of film time in animation.
Frontlighting - Light shining on the side of the subject facing the camera.
Genre – Works of art that are related by common characteristics or a style of painting that depicts scenes from everyday life.
Graphic Design - A term used to describe the field of commercial art that includes text as well as illustration.
Hue - The property that gives colour a name, e.g. red. A pure colour.
Icon - A sign or representation that stands for its object by virtue of a resemblance or analogy to it.
Iconographic - A set of specified or traditional symbols associated with the subject or theme in a stylized work of art.
Installation - A term used to describe an assemblage or environment constructed in a gallery specifically for a particular exhibition.
Irony - A technique of indicating, as through character or plot development, an intention or attitude opposite to that which is actually or ostensibly stated
ISO Speed - The emulsion speed (sensitivity) of the film as determined by the standards of the International Standards Organization. In these standards, both arithmetic (ASA) and logarithmic (DIN) speed values are expressed in a single ISO term. For example, a film with a speed of ISO 100/21° would have a speed of ASA 100 or 21 DIN.
Lampoon - A sharp, often virulent satire directed against an individual or institution; a work of literature, art, or the like, ridiculing severely the character or behaviour of a person, society, etc.
Lens - One or more pieces of optical glass designed to collect and focus rays of light to form a sharp image on the film, sensor, paper or projection screen.
Line – At its most basic, it is a mark that connects two points.
Manga - A Japanese graphic novel characterized by highly stylized art.
Marketing - The total of activities involved in the transfer of goods from the producer or seller to the consumer or buyer, including advertising, shipping, storing, and selling.
Media Art - A non-traditional discipline that includes art practices such as: computer art, animation, digital photography, sound art, video art, performance art, and installation art.
Media Bias - A term used to describe a real or perceived bias of journalists and news producers within the mass media, in the selection of which events will be reported and how they are covered.
Mixed Media - A painting or other work of art in which more than one medium and/or material is used, e.g., using acrylic, watercolour, and pen in a single work.
Mobiles - Shape and balance are the focus of these kinetic (moving) sculptures. Metal or paper shapes are balanced on wires and suspended from ceilings. They move with the air currents of their environment.
Motion – Motion refers to a continuous change in the position of a body relative to a reference point. In art, this may be actual as in kinetic sculpture, or implied as in lines used in drawing that suggest movement.
Multimedia - This type of artwork combines traditional components of visual art with non-visual components, such as sound, light, movement, and performance.
Negative - The developed film that contains a reversed tone image of the original scene.
Negative Space - The space surrounding the object.
Non-objective Art - This type art focuses on working with the elements and principles of art rather than creating duplications of reality.
Optical Illusion - Characterized by visually perceived images that, at least in common sense terms, are deceptive or misleading. Therefore, the information gathered by the eye is processed by the brain to give a perception that does not match with a physical measurement of the source. A conventional assumption is that there are physiological illusions that occur naturally, and cognitive illusions that can be demonstrated by specific visual tricks, that say something more basic about how human perception works.
Overexposure - A condition in which too much light reaches the film, producing a dense negative or a very light print or slide.
Palette - A thin wooden panel (often with a thumbhole) on which a painter mixes pigments. The terms can also be used to describe the range of colours chosen by an artist.
Panning - Moving the camera so that the image of a moving object remains in the same relative position in the viewfinder as you take a picture. In motion pictures, this refers to moving the camera itself across a scene from one side to another.
Panorama - A broad or wide view, usually scenic.
Paparazzi - Freelance photographers who doggedly pursues celebrities to take candid pictures for sale to magazines and newspapers.
Parody - A literary or artistic work that imitates the characteristic style of an author or a work for comic effect or ridicule.
Pattern - Created through the repetition of elements such as line, shape, and colour.
Performance Art - An art form combining elements of theatre, music, and the visual arts.
Persistence of Vision - The perceptual processes of the brain where the retina of the human eye retains an image for a brief moment. A visual form of memory known as iconic memory has been described as the cause of this phenomenon. Persistence of vision is said to account for the illusion of motion which results when a series of film images are displayed in quick succession, rather than the perception of the individual frames in the series.
Perspective - A system for representing three-dimensional space on a flat surface.
Pigment - Any substance used as a colouring agent. A powdery colouring matter mixed with oil, water, glue, or other materials to make paints, crayons, pastels and the like. Most pigments are now produced synthetically, but historically ,they have been made from a variety of animal, plant, and mineral sources.
Positive - The opposite of a negative, an image with the same tonal relationships as those in the original scenes - for example, a finished print or a slide.
Positive Space - The area within an object, or the space that the object occupies.
Primary Colours - In painting, those colours (blue, red and yellow), that cannot be made from mixtures of other colours.
Print - A positive picture, usually on paper, and usually produced from a negative.
The Principles of Art - Balance, contrast, proportion, pattern, rhythm, emphasis, variety, and unity.
Proportion - The relative size and placement of objects within an artwork.
Rhythm and Movement - Created by repeating elements throughout an artwork, or incorporating patterns into an artwork.
Satire - A literary composition, in verse or prose, in which human folly and vice are held up to scorn, derision, or ridicule.
Saturation - The purity, vividness, or intensity of a colour.
Scale - The size of an object as compared to other objects or to its environment, or as compared to the human figure.
Sculpture - A three dimensional artistic composition. Traditionally, sculpture was created with materials such as marble, stone, bronze, and cast metals.
Secondary Colours - The combination of any two primary colours results in the creation of a secondary colour. Yellow and red create orange. Yellow and blue create green. Blue and red create violet.
Selective Focus - Choosing a lens opening that produces a shallow depth of field. Usually this is used to isolate a subject by causing most other elements in the scene to be blurred.
Semiotics - The study of signs and symbols as elements of communicative behaviour.
Sequential Art - Another name for comic books or comic strips. The term was originally coined by Will Eisner as an alternative to ‘comic’.
Shade - Adding black or the complementary colour to a certain hue to make it darker.
Shape - Formed when a line meets or crosses itself creating a two-dimensional enclosed area.
Sidelighting - Light striking the subject from the side relative to the position of the camera; produces shadows and highlights to create modeling on the subject.
Simulated Texture - Texture that is suggested by the artist, but cannot actually be experienced with the sense of touch.
Single-Lens-Reflex (SLR) Camera - A camera in which you view the scene through the same lens that takes the picture.
Site-specific Art - This art practice is related to environmental art because it is art that is created for a specific location. The location is the catalyst of the artwork, thus the focus of the art is to connect to the significance of the land it is situated on.
Soft Focus - Produced by use of a special lens that creates soft outlines.
Space - The area surrounding or within an object, or the illusion of depth in a two dimensional work.
Story Arc - A story arc is an extended or continuing storyline in episodic storytelling media, such as television, comic books, and comic strips.
Style – May refer to artworks from a particular era that share certain distinctive visual characteristics, or the individual characteristics of an artist’s work.
Symbol - Something used for or regarded as representing something else; a material object representing something, often something immaterial; an emblem, token, or sign.
Talbotype - An early negative-positive photographic process, patented by William Henry Talbot in 1841, in which a paper negative is produced and then used to make a positive contact print in sunlight.
Technique - The way in which an artist uses a material in the creation of an artwork.
Texture - The surface quality of an object; how it feels to the touch, or how it looks like it would feel if you touched it.
Theme - A unifying or dominant idea, motif, etc., in a work of art
Time Exposure - A comparatively long exposure made in seconds or minutes.
Tint - Adding white to a hue or colour to make it lighter.
Tone - The degree of lightness or darkness in any given area of a print; also referred to as value. Cold tones (bluish) and warm tones (reddish) refer to the colour of the image in both black-and-white and colour photographs.
Toning - Intensifying or changing the tone of a photographic print after processing. Solutions called toners are used to produce various shades of colours.
Tripod - A three-legged supporting stand used to hold the camera steady; especially useful when using slow shutter speeds and/or telephoto lenses.
Typeface - Any design of type, including a full range of characters, as letters, numbers, and marks of punctuation, in all sizes.
Underexposure - A condition in which too little light reaches the film, producing a thin negative, a dark slide, or a muddy-looking print.
Unity - Achieved when the artists uses the art elements and combines them with the art principles to make a work which feels complete or whole.
Value - The lightness or darkness of a colour.
Variety - Achieved by using an element in different ways throughout an artwork, or by using different materials within an artwork. Variety brings the viewer’s eye from one area of the artwork to the next.
Viral Marketing - Viral marketing and viral advertising refer to marketing techniques that use pre-existing social networks to produce increases in brand awareness, through self-replicating viral processes, analogous to the spread of pathological and computer viruses. It can often be word-of-mouth delivered and enhanced online; it can harness the network effect of the Internet and can be very useful in reaching a large number of people rapidly.
Warm Colours - These are hues such as yellow, orange, red, and brown. These colours are often associated with things like the sun, heat, deserts, etc. Warm colours tend to advance or “pop” out from a surface.
Zoom Lens - A lens in which you adjust the focal length over a wide range. In effect, this gives you lenses of many focal lengths.
Advertising - The act or practice of calling public attention to one's product, service, need, etc., especially by paid announcements in newspapers and magazines, over radio or television, or on billboards.
Aesthetic - Having to do with the pleasurable and beautiful as opposed to the useful or scientific.
Ambient Light - The available light completely surrounding a subject. Light already existing in an indoor or outdoor setting that is not caused by any illumination supplied by the photographer.
Ambrotype - An early type of photograph, made by placing a glass negative against a dark background.
Analogous Colours - Colours that are side-by-side on the colour wheel.
Archetype - In the psychology of Carl Jung, archetypes are the images, patterns, and symbols that rise out of the collective unconscious and appear in dreams, mythology, and fairy tales.
Art – The manifestation of human creativity.
Assemblage - A work of art made by constructing or linking found objects, rather than mounting them on a flat surface.
Background – Those things which seem most distant, as if in the back of the picture.
Backlighting - Light coming from behind the subject, toward the camera lens, so that the subject stands out vividly against the background. Sometimes produces a silhouette effect.
Balance - A principle of art using elements such as colour, line, and shape in a way that does not allow one area of an artwork to overwhelm the other area. There are three different types of balance: symmetrical, asymmetrical, and radial.
Bounce Lighting - Flash or tungsten light bounced off a reflector (such as the ceiling or walls) to give the effect of natural or available light.
Bracketing - Taking additional pictures of the subject through a range of exposures -- both lighter and darker -- when unsure of the correct exposure.
Calotype - An early negative-positive photographic process, patented by William Henry Talbot in 1841, in which a paper negative is produced and then used to make a positive contact print in sunlight.
Camera Angles - Various positions of the camera (high, medium, or low; and left, right, or straight on) with respect to the subject, each giving a different viewpoint or effect.
Camera Obscura - A darkened enclosure in which images of outside objects are projected through a small aperture or lens onto a facing surface.
Candid Pictures - Unposed pictures of people, often taken without the subject's knowledge. These usually appear more natural and relaxed than posed pictures.
Caricature - A picture, description, etc., exaggerating the peculiarities or defects of persons or things.
Cell Animation – Traditional animation technique where each frame is drawn and painted by hand on transparent sheets of plastic.
Claymation – A form of stop motion animation where plasticine clay is used for the animated objects.
Close-Up - A picture taken with the subject close to the camera -- usually less than two or three feet away, but it can be as close as a few inches.
Collage - From the French word coller which means to paste, it is the combination of various mediums through cutting and pasting to achieve a total artwork.
Complementary Colours - Colours that are opposite to each other on the colour wheel; for example, red and green.
Composition - The final product in the creation process. The structure or organization of a work when artists use the art elements and principles in their art. The pleasing arrangement of the elements within a scene. In photography - the main subject, the foreground and background, and supporting subjects.
Contrast - Achieved when an artist uses elements such as colour or shape to create a pairing of two very different things.
Cool Colours - These are hues such as blue, green, purple; these colours are often associated with things like rain, clouds, ice, grass, etc. Cool colours tend to recede into the background.
Coolhunting - Coolhunting is a term coined in the early 1990s referring to a new breed of marketing professionals, called coolhunters. It is their job to make observations and predictions in changes of new or existing cultural trends.
Criticism - The process of describing, analyzing, interpreting, and judging works of art; often incorrectly used to mean censuring or fault finding.
Critiques - These are oral or written discussions about the artwork of others. They offer direction and guidance to the artist, and foster artistic development and proficiency. When our work is critiqued, we discover how we can develop and improve as artists.
Cropping – This refers to printing only part of the image that is in the negative, slide or digital image, usually for a more pleasing composition. May also refer to the framing of the scene in the viewfinder.
Culture – A set of learned ways of thinking and acting that characterizes a decision-making human group. Also refers to the unique art, food, traditions, values and beliefs, and other characteristics that unify groups of people. Artists play an important role within a culture.
Cutout animation - A form of stop motion animation where pieces of shaped or cut paper are used for the animated objects.
Daguerreotype - An early photographic process with the image made on a light-sensitive silver-coated metallic plate.
Demographic - A statistic characterizing human populations (or segments of human populations broken down by age or sex or income, etc.). In marketing, a demographic is a portion of a population, especially considered as consumers.
Depth of Field - The amount of distance between the nearest and farthest objects that appear in acceptably sharp focus in a photograph. Depth of field depends on the lens opening, the focal length of the lens, and the distance from the lens to the subject.
Diffuse Lighting - Lighting that is low or moderate in contrast, such as on an overcast day.
Documentation - Artists document their work in order to provide a record of their intentions, inspiration, artistic process, and personal reflections.
Earth Works - This term describes art that is concerned with the natural environment. These works are rather large and are subject to the destructive power of nature. Materials for earth works can include stone, rocks, clay, plants, twigs, and even snow.
Elements of Art - Line, shape, colour, value, and texture.
Emphasis – This is the creation of a focal point within a work.
Environmental Art - These works of art can be found outdoors. Artists use the natural landscape as materials for creating their sculptures. The art becomes part of the natural landscape. Large works are sometimes called earthworks.
Existing Light - Available light. Strictly speaking, existing light covers all natural lighting from moonlight to sunshine. For photographic purposes, existing light is the light that is already on the scene or project, and includes room lamps, fluorescent lamps, spotlights, neon signs, candles, daylight through windows, outdoor scenes at twilight or in moonlight, and scenes artificially illuminated after dark.
Film - A light sensitive, photographic emulsion on a flexible, transparent base that records images or scenes.
Film Speed - The sensitivity of a given film to light, indicated by a number such as ISO 200. The higher the number, the more sensitive or faster the film. Note: ISO stands for International Standards Organization.
Filter - A coloured piece of glass or other transparent material used over the lens to emphasize, eliminate, or change the colour or density of the entire scene, or of certain areas within a scene.
Flash - A brief, intense burst of light from a flashbulb or an electronic flash unit, usually used where the lighting on the scene is inadequate for picture taking.
f-Number or f-Stop - A number that indicates the size of the lens opening on an adjustable camera. The common f-numbers are f/1.4, f/2, f/2.8, f/4, f/5.6, f/8, f/11, f/16, and f/22. The larger the f-number, the smaller the lens opening. In this series, f/1.4 is the largest lens opening, and f/22 is the smallest. F-stops work in conjunction with shutter speeds to indicate exposure settings.
Focal Length - The distance between the film and the optical centre of the lens when the lens is focused on infinity. The focal length of the lens on most adjustable cameras is marked in millimetres on the lens mount.
Font - A complete assortment of type all of one style and size.
Found Object - An object that an artist incorporates into sculpture or painting, and to which he/she has ascribed aesthetic merit or some other significance.
Frame - One individual picture on a roll of film. Also, tree branch, arch, etc., that frames a subject. In an animated film, this refers to an individual picture or drawing within the sequence.
Frame Rate – Refers to the number of individual frames that are created for each second of film time in animation.
Frontlighting - Light shining on the side of the subject facing the camera.
Genre – Works of art that are related by common characteristics or a style of painting that depicts scenes from everyday life.
Graphic Design - A term used to describe the field of commercial art that includes text as well as illustration.
Hue - The property that gives colour a name, e.g. red. A pure colour.
Icon - A sign or representation that stands for its object by virtue of a resemblance or analogy to it.
Iconographic - A set of specified or traditional symbols associated with the subject or theme in a stylized work of art.
Installation - A term used to describe an assemblage or environment constructed in a gallery specifically for a particular exhibition.
Irony - A technique of indicating, as through character or plot development, an intention or attitude opposite to that which is actually or ostensibly stated
ISO Speed - The emulsion speed (sensitivity) of the film as determined by the standards of the International Standards Organization. In these standards, both arithmetic (ASA) and logarithmic (DIN) speed values are expressed in a single ISO term. For example, a film with a speed of ISO 100/21° would have a speed of ASA 100 or 21 DIN.
Lampoon - A sharp, often virulent satire directed against an individual or institution; a work of literature, art, or the like, ridiculing severely the character or behaviour of a person, society, etc.
Lens - One or more pieces of optical glass designed to collect and focus rays of light to form a sharp image on the film, sensor, paper or projection screen.
Line – At its most basic, it is a mark that connects two points.
Manga - A Japanese graphic novel characterized by highly stylized art.
Marketing - The total of activities involved in the transfer of goods from the producer or seller to the consumer or buyer, including advertising, shipping, storing, and selling.
Media Art - A non-traditional discipline that includes art practices such as: computer art, animation, digital photography, sound art, video art, performance art, and installation art.
Media Bias - A term used to describe a real or perceived bias of journalists and news producers within the mass media, in the selection of which events will be reported and how they are covered.
Mixed Media - A painting or other work of art in which more than one medium and/or material is used, e.g., using acrylic, watercolour, and pen in a single work.
Mobiles - Shape and balance are the focus of these kinetic (moving) sculptures. Metal or paper shapes are balanced on wires and suspended from ceilings. They move with the air currents of their environment.
Motion – Motion refers to a continuous change in the position of a body relative to a reference point. In art, this may be actual as in kinetic sculpture, or implied as in lines used in drawing that suggest movement.
Multimedia - This type of artwork combines traditional components of visual art with non-visual components, such as sound, light, movement, and performance.
Negative - The developed film that contains a reversed tone image of the original scene.
Negative Space - The space surrounding the object.
Non-objective Art - This type art focuses on working with the elements and principles of art rather than creating duplications of reality.
Optical Illusion - Characterized by visually perceived images that, at least in common sense terms, are deceptive or misleading. Therefore, the information gathered by the eye is processed by the brain to give a perception that does not match with a physical measurement of the source. A conventional assumption is that there are physiological illusions that occur naturally, and cognitive illusions that can be demonstrated by specific visual tricks, that say something more basic about how human perception works.
Overexposure - A condition in which too much light reaches the film, producing a dense negative or a very light print or slide.
Palette - A thin wooden panel (often with a thumbhole) on which a painter mixes pigments. The terms can also be used to describe the range of colours chosen by an artist.
Panning - Moving the camera so that the image of a moving object remains in the same relative position in the viewfinder as you take a picture. In motion pictures, this refers to moving the camera itself across a scene from one side to another.
Panorama - A broad or wide view, usually scenic.
Paparazzi - Freelance photographers who doggedly pursues celebrities to take candid pictures for sale to magazines and newspapers.
Parody - A literary or artistic work that imitates the characteristic style of an author or a work for comic effect or ridicule.
Pattern - Created through the repetition of elements such as line, shape, and colour.
Performance Art - An art form combining elements of theatre, music, and the visual arts.
Persistence of Vision - The perceptual processes of the brain where the retina of the human eye retains an image for a brief moment. A visual form of memory known as iconic memory has been described as the cause of this phenomenon. Persistence of vision is said to account for the illusion of motion which results when a series of film images are displayed in quick succession, rather than the perception of the individual frames in the series.
Perspective - A system for representing three-dimensional space on a flat surface.
Pigment - Any substance used as a colouring agent. A powdery colouring matter mixed with oil, water, glue, or other materials to make paints, crayons, pastels and the like. Most pigments are now produced synthetically, but historically ,they have been made from a variety of animal, plant, and mineral sources.
Positive - The opposite of a negative, an image with the same tonal relationships as those in the original scenes - for example, a finished print or a slide.
Positive Space - The area within an object, or the space that the object occupies.
Primary Colours - In painting, those colours (blue, red and yellow), that cannot be made from mixtures of other colours.
Print - A positive picture, usually on paper, and usually produced from a negative.
The Principles of Art - Balance, contrast, proportion, pattern, rhythm, emphasis, variety, and unity.
Proportion - The relative size and placement of objects within an artwork.
Rhythm and Movement - Created by repeating elements throughout an artwork, or incorporating patterns into an artwork.
Satire - A literary composition, in verse or prose, in which human folly and vice are held up to scorn, derision, or ridicule.
Saturation - The purity, vividness, or intensity of a colour.
Scale - The size of an object as compared to other objects or to its environment, or as compared to the human figure.
Sculpture - A three dimensional artistic composition. Traditionally, sculpture was created with materials such as marble, stone, bronze, and cast metals.
Secondary Colours - The combination of any two primary colours results in the creation of a secondary colour. Yellow and red create orange. Yellow and blue create green. Blue and red create violet.
Selective Focus - Choosing a lens opening that produces a shallow depth of field. Usually this is used to isolate a subject by causing most other elements in the scene to be blurred.
Semiotics - The study of signs and symbols as elements of communicative behaviour.
Sequential Art - Another name for comic books or comic strips. The term was originally coined by Will Eisner as an alternative to ‘comic’.
Shade - Adding black or the complementary colour to a certain hue to make it darker.
Shape - Formed when a line meets or crosses itself creating a two-dimensional enclosed area.
Sidelighting - Light striking the subject from the side relative to the position of the camera; produces shadows and highlights to create modeling on the subject.
Simulated Texture - Texture that is suggested by the artist, but cannot actually be experienced with the sense of touch.
Single-Lens-Reflex (SLR) Camera - A camera in which you view the scene through the same lens that takes the picture.
Site-specific Art - This art practice is related to environmental art because it is art that is created for a specific location. The location is the catalyst of the artwork, thus the focus of the art is to connect to the significance of the land it is situated on.
Soft Focus - Produced by use of a special lens that creates soft outlines.
Space - The area surrounding or within an object, or the illusion of depth in a two dimensional work.
Story Arc - A story arc is an extended or continuing storyline in episodic storytelling media, such as television, comic books, and comic strips.
Style – May refer to artworks from a particular era that share certain distinctive visual characteristics, or the individual characteristics of an artist’s work.
Symbol - Something used for or regarded as representing something else; a material object representing something, often something immaterial; an emblem, token, or sign.
Talbotype - An early negative-positive photographic process, patented by William Henry Talbot in 1841, in which a paper negative is produced and then used to make a positive contact print in sunlight.
Technique - The way in which an artist uses a material in the creation of an artwork.
Texture - The surface quality of an object; how it feels to the touch, or how it looks like it would feel if you touched it.
Theme - A unifying or dominant idea, motif, etc., in a work of art
Time Exposure - A comparatively long exposure made in seconds or minutes.
Tint - Adding white to a hue or colour to make it lighter.
Tone - The degree of lightness or darkness in any given area of a print; also referred to as value. Cold tones (bluish) and warm tones (reddish) refer to the colour of the image in both black-and-white and colour photographs.
Toning - Intensifying or changing the tone of a photographic print after processing. Solutions called toners are used to produce various shades of colours.
Tripod - A three-legged supporting stand used to hold the camera steady; especially useful when using slow shutter speeds and/or telephoto lenses.
Typeface - Any design of type, including a full range of characters, as letters, numbers, and marks of punctuation, in all sizes.
Underexposure - A condition in which too little light reaches the film, producing a thin negative, a dark slide, or a muddy-looking print.
Unity - Achieved when the artists uses the art elements and combines them with the art principles to make a work which feels complete or whole.
Value - The lightness or darkness of a colour.
Variety - Achieved by using an element in different ways throughout an artwork, or by using different materials within an artwork. Variety brings the viewer’s eye from one area of the artwork to the next.
Viral Marketing - Viral marketing and viral advertising refer to marketing techniques that use pre-existing social networks to produce increases in brand awareness, through self-replicating viral processes, analogous to the spread of pathological and computer viruses. It can often be word-of-mouth delivered and enhanced online; it can harness the network effect of the Internet and can be very useful in reaching a large number of people rapidly.
Warm Colours - These are hues such as yellow, orange, red, and brown. These colours are often associated with things like the sun, heat, deserts, etc. Warm colours tend to advance or “pop” out from a surface.
Zoom Lens - A lens in which you adjust the focal length over a wide range. In effect, this gives you lenses of many focal lengths.