Let’s continue our exploration of seeing the light.
Background Light
Here we see a red parrot with a bad background and a toucan with nice background. In the parrot photo, taken with my zoom lens set at 50mm and f/8, the white light coming through the leaves is distracting – because our eyes usually go to the brightest part of a picture first. In the toucan shot, I used a 300mm lens and a wide aperture to totally blur the background and any highlights that may have detracted from the beauty of the subject.
Our Eyes Can Be Fooled
Sometimes, even if the background looks properly exposed to our eyes, it may be overexposed in a photograph. Here’s an example.
I photographed this girl in the Maldives. She was standing in the shade and the beautiful blue water filled the background of the frame. However, because I set the exposure for her face, using the Spot Meter mode in my camera, the much brighter background was overexposed in my picture.
The quick fix was to make a picture, rather than just taking a picture. I asked her to move just a few feet into a position where the background was much darker than the water.
Reducing Flash Shadows
In flash photography, we need to pay attention to where and how the light from the flash is falling on and around a subject. See how the light from my flash casts a harsh shadow behind the holy man that I photographed in Nepal.
With a little effort, shadows can be greatly reduced and even avoided. For the picture of a performer at the Peking Opera, I balanced the light from the flash to the natural light. For the picture of the young clown, I bounced the light from the flash off the ceiling for a diffused light effect.
Rick Sammon
www.ricksammon.com