Photography can be simplified down to the art of capturing light, and we all learn to capture that light correctly for perfect exposure. But what if that is actually hurting our creativity and work? This advice changed how I take photos.
A foundational principle when learning photography is to understand exposure and use different settings to manipulate it to capture every detail of an image. That way, we can take the image into our preferred editing suite and manipulate it however we'd like. Conceptually, this makes sense as it gives the photographer the maximum headroom when deciding where they'd like to take their image.
But what if being technically correct is actually hindering your creativity? I call this the exposure paradox—the idea that we learn one thing, yet many of the photos from those we look up to for inspiration absolutely do not follow what we are taught. It's often said that we learn the rules in photography so we can break them, but this one specifically has always been difficult for my technically oriented brain.
If you're like me, you might shoot nature photography with a very mathematical approach rather than one that might be seen as more artistic. For years, I emphasized the importance of making sure every pixel in my image was sharp by focus stacking or ensuring that absolutely no detail was lost by exposure bracketing my images for a larger dynamic range. Many times, I spent more time making sure I captured the scene "correctly" rather than thinking about what was truly important in a scene. If this sounds familiar to you, then you're in the right spot.
At some point, I had an epiphany when studying the works of those I admired. Their histograms never represented what I deemed to be proper exposure, so why was my brain so wired to make sure it was all there just in case?
When I started challenging myself to capture images without editing them, it really opened my eyes to what was important in a scene rather than simply snapping a photo and figuring it out later. I encourage anyone who struggles with what I've described to go out and spend time trying to get every single thing correct in-camera—white balance, framing, crop, and exposure. However, I don’t necessarily mean capturing exposures at 0 EV. Instead, try to expose your images for what’s important within the scene.
Doing this will help break the boundaries you might have developed over the years in your photography. It should be noted that this doesn't mean you should go out and capture completely overexposed images just for the sake of it. Instead, allow yourself to blow out highlights or crush blacks when those areas aren't details you care about within the image you're trying to create. At the end of the day, many images you capture can be edited to be what you want them to be, but this exercise is intended to help you find more creative freedom in the images you’re creating.
Metered at roughly +.75 EV (overexposed)
All of the images in this article are straight out of the camera with zero editing besides possible lens correction. I did my absolute best to allow shadows to exist in darkness and highlights to be as bright as they were in person.
Hello alex! Thank you so much for the informative video. Can you tell me what area of New Mexico you were shooting in. Thanks so much!
Which part? The photos are from White Sands National Park
from an art perspective the slightly bleached washed look is very popular amongst landscape photography now as well and I think there's a place for both I tend to be conservatively half a top underexposed and I like contrast rich tones but everyone is different and it's depends on what you're trying to create I do like these and it's a different way of working definitely with the camera you're using. Also you've got that ability to do that and so do I using a Fuji GFX camera you can pretty much go any exposure you like and then do whatever you like with the file afterwards. I'm assuming that you use a hassleblad as that is the camera in your hand.
I do not! However the video was shot with a Hasselblad. I think its possible to do with most cameras though
Yeah, it sure is
That Hasselblad doesn’t have video capability???
It does not. My fingers are faster than my brain I suspect. I meant to say "was shot WITH a hasselblad"
If the goal is to capture the final composition in camera, seems to follow that you are shooting JPEG's? Then, perhaps just limiting your creativity in a slightly different way ?
No need to operate without a "safety net" (raw files). Why not just record both raw and jpg since film is essentially free? In fact, if you're putting in the time and effort to go on a shoot, why not also just snap a few more conventionally exposed shots, just in case?
This is a very encouraging approach to me. I totally dread editing. I wish I could find someone who loved it so I could outsource it all! Not being worried about losing some detail in unimportant shadows or trying not to blow out highlights, but being creative about what I want to communicate is awesome. Thanks for putting the histogram on famous photos! You've really encouraged me to be less technically perfect on a photo and more creative! Thanks!!! (But now I want a Hasselblad! My vintage 1959 500C is long gone!)
In addition to this nice article, the two beautiful images here above are examples of having to overexpose what the meter suggests to actually achieve the proper exposure. (As we can see the final result is not overexposed in those images)
Over exposing for snow or sand is the correct approach as the meter gets confused by the reflection. That's why there's a snow/sand mode in some cameras and what that mode would do.
Similarly, underexposing for a really dark subject (think charcoal) would be useful as the meter would bring the exposure to be brighter than what the subject really demands.
Those two might sound counter intuitive at first but it is because the meter sees shades of greys and the "white plus reflection" or "dark with absorption" is not on the grey limits.
We used to have to shoot a really dark subject and a really bright one with bracketing -2 to +2 with slide film to see that in effect. Quite revealing.
One of my early photographs of a skier looks like a sunset one, even though it was noon in full sun, because I had not overexposed what the meter saw as normal but was indeed too much because of the reflection of the light on the snow.
Side note, using a hand held light meter would read the proper exposure in all cases as it measures the light received before any possible reflection. Not really needed in the digital world anymore since we can see the result and correct but still useful to understand.
And if shooting RAW, best to keep it under exposed and recover the shadows in editing as what is overexposed will not be available in the RAW file. Same with slide film. For negative film plus edit, better to expose for shadows. 🙂
Hope that helps!
Over exposing for snow or sand is the correct approach because the meter by design assumes the scene is a typical scene with a complete range of tones (rather than a scene with a dispropotionate amount of highlights - like snow).
Absolutely. Back in the film days, I upgraded my Olympus OM-1 with an OM-4 in 1985. The OM-4 could average up to eight spot meter readings, but apropos to to this article, it had hilite and shade buttons. Spot meter on the blackest black or whitest white in a scene and hit the appropriate button to alter the exposure from the assumed 18% grey. I've lacked those options on most of my digital cameras, but the idea is permanently in my brain and directs how I adjust off the recommended exposure from the camera's metering system.
You have a great eye and you see what others do not. Your captures are done with a lot of brain power for I know the brightness is very high at White Sands. I wounder if you have "Zebras" turned on or do not have or use! Also in what mode M, R or S or even camera Auto. Also what is seen on the viewfinder eyepiece or rear LCD screen is the camera jpeg as well as the histogram even though if you capture in both RAW and jpeg both are hard to tell apart.
The area you are in is very bright and sunglasses are needed but then a camera filter also that is like the sunglasses in color and blocking power. I have never found sunglasses the same color as a filter!
Also the Hasselblad X2D 100C is ISO Invariance meaning if you capture say in a low ISO yo can brighten an image just by increasing exposure in post, where it comes in handy is when you use Zebras and lower the exposure dial to the negative to get rid of them say on a bright day birding for feather detail or a sunny day of leafing to get better color and detail.
I used to look at the Histogram doing Astro Milky Ways BUT, yes in M, that just adjusting the metering mode at the bottom, M.M., to be a + .7 was best for a bright night image but again the screen in the field is effected by Jpeg setting in camera and is a Jpeg image.
Another did you look at the settings and adjust the settings that only affect the jpeg images or leave it all be as what the camera came set as.
It is like my Sony cameras have a setting called "D Range Optimizer" that helps with shadows and another is the "Creative Style" one that is for bright scenes can picked for a jpeg and not affect a raw.
A "Creative Style" an be picked in post in most software like Lrc in the four little squares top right in basic section that will help get a good start to a raw image and also you can pick a WB like if you used AWB or even use the color picker.
There is so much more to camera settings that affect the image on camera and in a post image all also affect the histogram.
Lastly as long as you are happy with your images, I like them for what you eye sees and the composition always good to see what another frames!
I wasn't using an zebras. Just a histogram. I shot in raw though, not jpeg. However the images here were untouched. Thanks for the kind words Edwin!
Very nice thought-provoking article and video. There was a time when I thought the goal of choosing camera settings was to try to produce nice image files straight out of the camera with little intervention. Of course, a portion of the images would have some blown out highlights which had the potential to ruin otherwise nice images. I now almost always underexpose and make adjustments later. Even so, many scenes have a wider dynamic range than what the camera can record, so, as a photographer, you are forced to choose what is more important in a single exposure - shadows or highlights (or bracket with multiple shots).
Thanks Max!