Exposure Photo Workshop: Develop Your Digital Photography Talent Sample Chapter

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WHAT IS EXPOSURE AND WHY DOES IT MATTER?

RECOGNIZING A GOOD EXPOSURE

TAKING CHARGE OF YOUR EXPOSURES

THE MYTH OF THE CORRECT EXPOSURE

EXPOSURE AND MOOD

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Good exposure in a photograph is one of thosecreative experiences where the result is often fargreater than the total of the steps used to getthere. If you’ve ever seen a potter at work, throw-ing globs of wet clay onto a spinning potter’swheel and shaping their object with an assort-ment of sticks, bits of wire, and dabs with a wetcloth, you’ve seen this idea in action. As thepiece progresses, out of these mundane ingredi-ents and almost childlike methods, gradually asoft, graceful shape emerges and transforms mereclay into an inspired work. The potter has avision and is able to extract that vision from thematerials at hand.

So too great photographic exposures arise fromthe most basic of tools and techniques. Yes, agood exposure is the product of routine technicalchoices such as metering correctly, choosing the

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right lens aperture and shutter speed, and settingthe optimum white balance. But when these ordi-nary steps are combined in a purposeful way by askilled craftsperson, exposure rises above the levelof simple “correctness” and something fascinatinghappens: Exposure itself becomes a creative ele-ment in the photograph. Thoughtfully consideredand well-executed exposure choices can trans-form an ordinary subject into a very extraordinaryphotograph.

Mastering creative exposure is about developingyour ability to see your subject in terms of a fin-ished image and to extract your vision from theworld around you (see 1-1). And the key to doingthat, of course, is to first understand exactly whatexposure is — and what it takes to turn a goodexposure into an inspired one.

ABOUT THIS PHOTOColorful cliffs baked in late sun insouthern Utah. Understandingexposure helps capture scenesthe way that you see them. Takenwith an advanced zoom compactdigital camera and exposed for1/100 sec. at f/7.4, ISO 100, on atripod.

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WHAT IS EXPOSURE ANDWHY DOES IT MATTERAlthough most photographs are made in expo-sures that last just fractions of a second, that briefinstant is not so much a spontaneous event as itis the culmination of a long (hopefully not toolong or you’ll miss the shot) thought process onthe part of the photographer — you. The processbegins when you spot a potential subject, contin-ues as you decide how to approach the subject(where to stand, what lens to use, whether thelighting is interesting enough), and ends theinstant you press the shutter release button.

A lot of important questions — both technicaland aesthetic — have to be (or at least, shouldbe) addressed before you give your trigger fingerpermission to commit to your idea. And one ofthe most important issues that you have to con-tend with is setting the exposure. In fact, in termsof the success or failure of a particular image,probably no question you’ll confront is as impor-tant as this one: How should I expose this scene?

You can choose the most brilliant subject, findthe most startling and creative angle, and havelucked into a splendid lighting situation, but ifyou expose it poorly, you’ve tripped just beforereaching the finish line. Ouch.

If photography is a new hobby for you, one of thefirst questions you may be asking is, “Exactlywhat is exposure and why is it so important?”Okay, granted, that’s two questions, but they’reboth essentially asking the same thing. There areboth simple and complex answers to this ques-tion, but I’ll begin with the simple ones (don’tworry, the more complex ones are far friendlierthan you might think).

Despite the fact that this entire book is devoted toexposure and that the very mention of the topicseems to instigate a lot of passionate debate amongphotographers, the truth is that exposure — atleast in its most basic concept — is pretty simpleto define. A good or “correct” (and I have a lotmore to say about that word in the coming pages)exposure is one that captures the overall tonalrange (the range of dark through light tones) thatyour subject had in person. That’s it. What you’retrying to do in essence is to capture an image thatshows the dark tones, the light tones, and all thetones in between pretty much as they looked toyou in person (see 1-2). Or, at least, the way thatyou thought they looked.

EXPOSURE PHOTO WORKSHOP / The Art of the Exposure

Another question you may be ask-ing yourself is, “Isn’t getting good

exposure the reason I bought an expensive camera inthe first place?” I address that in Chapter 2, but buyinga nice camera was a good decision.

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RECOGNIZING A GOODEXPOSUREWhen you create a good exposure, it means thatyou’ve provided your camera’s sensor with justthe right amount of light (or exposure) to recordyour subject’s tones correctly. And like the oldadage of not knowing what great art is but“knowing it when you see it,” good exposurestend to resonate with quality — even if we’re notsure what’s creating that feeling. If you give thesensor too little light, you underexpose the sceneand your subject appears darker than you remem-

ABOUT THIS PHOTO In setting exposure for this old home in Historic Deerfield, Massachusetts, I wanted to get detail in the brightsnow areas, as well as in the shadows of the trees. Shot with an 18-70mm Nikkor zoom lens at 1/250 sec., f/8 at ISO 200, on a tripod.

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ber it (or wanted it); subjects that would other-wise be bright appear gray and dingy instead ofclean and white. If you give the sensor too muchlight, you overexpose the scene, and all of thetones in the pictures seem washed out and lack-ing detail in the brightest or highlight regions. Inthe comparison shots of a giant saguaro cactusshown in 1-3, 1-4, and 1-5, for example, you cansee how changes in exposure change the tonalrange of the subject.

Your exposure goal then is simple: you want tocapture an image that is neither too dark nor toobright, but just right.



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How difficult it is to get that perfect balance oftones depends largely on your subject. When ascene is filled with relatively average tonalitiesand the lighting is gentle and even, getting agood exposure is a fairly simple process. Yourcamera’s automatic exposure system does a verygood job of correctly recording the scene’s tonalrange. I found the colorful gathering of lobstertrap floats shown in 1-6 while wandering a wharfin Maine and shot at the metered exposure. Itrusted the metering system to do a good job withthis simple scene because all of the tones wererelatively even and there was nothing overly darkor light. It was literally a point-and-shoot photo-graph. Similarly, while the water garden scene in1-7 has a mix of tones, none of them dominatesthe others and so a good, average exposure han-dles the scene quite well.

The more complex your subject is in terms oftonalities, however — with a lot of competingbright and dark tones, a severe imbalance oftones, or even a lack of tonal variations — themore challenging the job becomes. That’s exactlywhere your personal knowledge and experiencecome into play. You need to know how your cam-era’s light meter will react to all of that prettysnow — and what steps you need to take to helpit record the snow correctly.


ABOUT THESE PHOTOSThis series of photos shows how expo-sure affects the tonalities of a scene. In 1-3, the sensor received too muchexposure and therefore the tones and colors seem washed out and pale.In 1-4, the exposure was correct and so the tonalities appear much as theydid to me in person. And in 1-5, the shot received too little light and so theimage seems muddy and far too dark. All three taken with a 70-300mmNikkor zoom lens and exposed for 1/100 second at f/8, 1/250 second at f/8,and 1/1000 second at f/8, respectively. All ISO 200 on a tripod.

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ABOUT THIS PHOTOI shot this water garden atLongwood Gardens outside ofPhiladelphia on a very overcastday between rain showers. Thecloudy sky helped to keep theoverall lighting even and gen-tle. Shot with a compact digitalcamera at 1/30 sec., f/4.4 at ISO100, on a monopod.

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ABOUT THIS PHOTOI photographed these lobsterfloats on a wharf in Stonington,Maine on a slightly overcast daywith very even lighting. Takenwith a compact digital cameraand exposed for 1/70 second atf/6.7, ISO 200, on a tripod.

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bright background. I had to make a decisionabout how to handle the scene because I knewfrom experience in similar situations that themeter would be fooled by the contrast.Conversely, photographing an oyster boat in fogon the Housatonic River near my home inConnecticut provided a scene almost totallydevoid of contrast (see 1-9).


Photographing snow is trickybecause it has a tendency to come

out gray rather than white if you don’t make the rightmetering and exposure adjustments. There are somesimple tricks to photographing pure-white subjects, likesnow, and I discuss these and other problem-exposuresubjects in Chapter 8.

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ABOUT THIS PHOTO Contrast is a common problem in outdoor scenes. In this shot, I elected to set the exposure for the rock formation and letthe foreground shadows go black while preserving detail in the brighter areas. Shot with a 20mm Nikkor lens at 1/370 sec., f/4.5 at ISO 100, on a tripod.

Contrast is one of the more vexing exposureproblems you’ll face and often it takes some prac-tice and experience to learn to handle it well. Forexample, in the shot of red rocks in Sedona,Arizona, shown in 1-8, I was confronted by a verydark foreground contrasting with an extremely

Metering is an important aspect ofexposure, of course, and I devoteall of Chapter 3 to the subject.

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Getting a good exposure in tricky conditions mayseem like an overwhelming challenge when you’refirst getting used to your camera, but it will becomesecond nature very quickly. I’ve seen students whodidn’t know a blown out highlight from a lens capat the start of one of my adult-education classes,mastering the basics of exposure in a matter of a fewweeks. I’m always surprised, in fact, at how quicklytheir technique improves. It will happen for you,too. Things such as excessive contrast (1-10) andshadowy faces are traps that you’ll recognize beforeyou take a shot, and you’ll have the technical toolsin your arsenal to deal with them. The better yourexposures are, the more powerful and successful allof your other creative decisions become.

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TAKING CHARGE OF YOUREXPOSURESIn the days before digital cameras and image-edit-ing software (when dinosaurs still roamed theearth, as one of my friends put it), you either livedwith the exposure mistakes you made, or you paida lab to fix them for you. In my case, my father(also a photographer) built me a darkroom in ourbasement and I spent most of my high schoolyears living the life of a troglodyte. I learned howto fix almost every exposure mistake imaginableuntil I had a moment of clarity (it took a while toexperience that clarity, trust me), and I decidedthat it was far simpler to learn to make good expo-sures in the first place than to spend all of mywaking hours (and most of my allowance) makinggood prints from bad exposures.

ABOUT THIS PHOTO Fog is the great thief of contrast, and the brightness of fog can fool a camera’s light meter into thinkingthere’s more light available than actually exists. Shot with a 70-300mm Nikkor zoom lens at 1/40 sec., f/5.6 at ISO 200, on a tripod.

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Even though digital-imaging software is fun touse and is capable of making all of the fixes that Imade in the darkroom (and a thousand timesmore), it’s far better for you to take charge of yourexposures before they’re even made. Fortunately,digital cameras include numerous features thathelp you do just that, as well as to view and cor-rect mistakes immediately after exposure. Hereare some tips on how to use your digital camerato take control of the exposure process:

■ Study your camera’s light-metering features.The light meter that is built into your digitalcamera is remarkably accurate most of thetime, even in difficult or complicated situa-tions. In the shot of Maine’s Nubble Light(1-11), for example, I relied on my advancedzoom camera’s meter and it provided a greatexposure in a tough situation. Using a lightmeter effectively, however, requires a good bitof knowledge about how it works and when itneeds some guidance from you. In Chapter 3,I take an in-depth look at how your lightmeter works and the theory behind lightmeasurement. For now, take time to studyyour manual and review your camera’s meter-ing choices so that as you read the chapter,you can relate it to your camera.

■ Review your exposures on your LCD panel.Professional photographers used to usePolaroid films to test exposures and only com-mitted the shot to film once they were satis-fied that the exposure was perfect. It was aslow and expensive way to test a shot, butmuch less expensive in terms of time andmoney than wasting actual film. With digital,the LCD panel on your camera provides youwith the same ability to preview your expo-sures immediately. The LCD isn’t foolproofbecause sometimes that small image has a lotmore contrast and pop than the image fileactually has, but it does provide you with afairly decent advance look at your photos.Once you’re experienced enough to knowhow to correct any flaws you see in the pre-view, you can re-shoot and correct exposuremistakes on the spot.


ABOUT THIS PHOTO Once you’re aware of it, you’ll quicklylearn to spot contrasty scenes like this old weather vane photographedin Maine. Exposure was 1/640 second at f/6.3 with a 200mm Nikkor lens;ISO 200, on a tripod.

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■ Learn to interpret your histogram. Mostadvanced digital cameras offer a histogramfeature that displays a graphic representationof the tonal range of your exposures, which isan extremely useful tool once you learn howto interpret the information. Learning to reada histogram isn’t difficult, but it is foreign tomost non-photographers. The sooner youbecome familiar with what it looks like andwhat its content means, the less abstract itwill seem to you. At the very least, for now,learn where the control is to turn your his-togram feature on and off.

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■ Get to know an image-editing program. Ifyou’re not already using an image-editing pro-gram, it’s probably a good thing to learn con-currently with learning to use your digitalcamera. With some basic skills in editing, youcan quickly remedy those (rare) exposure mis-takes that you make with the camera, or sim-ply enhance the good qualities of yourexposures (converting images to black andwhite, for example — see figure 1-12).There’s no point in hiding the fact thatimage-editing software is pretty much a pho-tographic wizard when it comes not only totweaking photographic exposure, but tounveiling a whole new universe of creativepossibilities, as well. I’m an absolutePhotoshop addict, and when I’m not shootingpictures, you can almost always find me

ABOUT THIS PHOTO The relatively high contrast between the dark foreground and bright lighthouse didn’t foolthe meter of my zoom camera. Exposed for 1/90 second at f/5.9, ISO 100 with a 116mm Nikkor zoom lens, on a tripod.

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I discuss the advantages — and thelimitations — of the histogram fea-ture in Chapter 8.

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staring at my monitor working on files, toenhance them either technically or creatively.As I said earlier, however, I think it’s far moreimportant to spend your time learning tomake good exposures in the camera than tolearn how to fix bad ones in editing. Just as Ilearned the value of making better in-cameraexposures by processing my own film andprints, your editing program can quickly teachyou how to adjust your shooting methods tocreate better image files.

■ Understand that technically correct isn’talways the best exposure for the shot you’retrying to take. Even if every exposure youever made was technically correct (again,meaning if the tonalities were recorded accu-rately), what are the chances that your cam-era would make the best aesthetic exposurechoices? In figure 1-13, for example, I inten-tionally based my exposure on the brighterareas (the doorway) and let the interior of thebarn I was standing in go black to create amore dramatic look.


ABOUT THIS PHOTO I converted this shot of a relief carving on the façade of Notre Dame in Paris to black and white using Photoshop — oneof thousands of interesting effects available. Taken with a 70-300mm Nikkor zoom lens and exposed for 1/1000 at f/5.3, ISO 200, handheld.

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As you learn in the coming chapters, there isa vast gulf between creating a technically cor-rect exposure and an inspired one. When itcomes to capturing action subjects, for exam-ple, you can choose between using a fastershutter speed to freeze the motion, and usinga slow shutter speed to transform it into aninterpretive flow of color and light, depend-ing on the feeling you are trying to create.Your camera could never make that distinc-tion (at least not without help from you)because it has no idea what your intentionsare or what you’re photographing. That iswhy your camera will always need you toguide it in your quest for creative exposureperfection.

■ Wean yourself off of the automatic scenemodes. There are numerous exposure modes,called scene modes on most cameras, which actas shortcuts for getting good exposures withsubjects such as landscapes, sports, and nightphotos. While these modes can be useful whenyou’re first learning to shoot a variety of chal-lenging subjects, you still have to learn whatthe camera is doing behind the scenes whenyou’re in those modes. There are better meth-ods for controlling the exposure in virtuallyany of these situations, and the sooner youlearn to use them, the more in control you are.Turning your picture-taking decisions over toautomation is kind of like getting into wood-working and then buying a computer-drivenlathe to turn the wood for you. Where is theartistic challenge and the fun of exploration?As precise as that lathe might be, it’s going togive you the exact same predictable resultsevery time you use it. (And what are you goingto do with all of those identical candlesticks?)

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■ Be patient — experience eventually pays off.Digital cameras can’t accumulate experiencethe way that your brain does (yet). With eachphotograph that you take, you are gainingexperience that will translate into better and

ABOUT THIS PHOTO By intentionally metering and exposingfor only the bright areas here, I was able to intensify the drama of thissimple barn interior. Taken with a 12-24mm Nikkor zoom and exposedfor 1/80 second at f/4.5, ISO 200, handheld.

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more ambitious images. You are developingboth technical and visual skills and learninghow to finesse ordinary situations into greatpictures. The charming portrait in 1-14 wastaken by Jennica Reis, a former student ofmine who went from hobbyist to running herown part-time portrait business while she wasstill taking classes. I could see in our class thatshe was applying the concepts she was learn-ing and using her daughters as practice sub-jects almost daily.

It’s up to you to take charge of your exposures andall of your digital camera’s controls so that youcan use your camera as what it is meant to be: atool. Think about all of the wonderful photo-graphs that were made a hundred or more yearsago and that have survived to inspire us today.Those pioneering photographers didn’t even havefilm (let alone Wi-Fi enabled phones that trans-mit images across the room at the speed of light),and yet their photos created a new visual mediumthat forever changed the world. And now you arethe pioneer of a new medium. Be humble (or atleast pretend to be).

THE MYTH OF THE CORRECTEXPOSUREAlthough throughout this book I may use theterms “good” or “bad” to describe the success orfailure of a particular exposure, one of the mythsthat I hope to dispel early on is that there is onlyone correct exposure for any given scene or subject. Not to use a terrible photographic pun,but there is nothing black and white about goodexposure — at least not when it comes to seriouscreative picture taking. As my high school artteacher used to tell me years ago (every time Iwould become frustrated with a new assignment),there are no mistakes in art, only personalchoices and new opportunities. She was beingkind, I know, but I got the point anyway.


Subject-specific exposure modesare found on many cameras and

they can provide a shortcut to good exposures, pro-vided you match the right mode to the right subject. InChapter 6, I discuss some of the most common modes,when it’s safe to use them, and when you’re better offmaking your own decisions about exposure.

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ABOUT THIS PHOTO Learning to make gentle portraits like thisis all about applying some basic exposure concepts to a subject thatreally touches you. Taken with a 50mm Canon lens and exposed for1/250 second at f/1.8, ISO 200. ©Jennica Reis.

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VISUALIZING THE EXPOSURE YOU WANTYou’re probably starting to become aware that thegist of what I’m saying so far is that exposure is avery subjective aspect of photography. Likechoosing a subject or composing a scene, no twopeople see exposure the same way. The exposurethat you think is correct for a particular subjectand the exposure that someone else thinks is cor-rect could be (not always, but often) entirely dif-ferent — and yet each of you might be very

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happy with your results. The key to getting theexposure that satisfies you the most is imaginingwhat you want the picture to look like before youeven begin to meter the subject (see 1-15 and1-16). In the shot of New Hampshire’s famedstone profile of the Old Man of the Mountain(see 1-17), I turned his classic profile into a sil-houette by exposing for the sky. Sad to say, theOld Man crumbled to the valley floor during ahard winter — after 12,000 years of looking downon New Hampshire.

ABOUT THESE PHOTOS Sunsets offer a great example of how a slight shift in exposure can radically alter the final results. In 1-15, I wantedto see how this Florida scene would look with more saturated colors, and so I underexposed from a meter reading of the sky (I metered the sky justto the left of the sun) by two stops. Shot using a 105mm Nikkor lens at 1/60 sec., f/18 at ISO 200, on a tripod. Figure 1-16 was shot only seconds later,and I shot at the actual metered exposure of 1/15 sec., at f/18.

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The great master photographer Ansel Adams, whoprobably did more to advance both the art and sci-ence of exposure than any other photographer,used the term visualization to describe the processof consciously trying to imagine the final picturebefore you make the exposure. In his landmarkbook, The Negative, Adams writes, “Visualization isa conscious process of projecting the final photo-graphic image in the mind before taking the firststeps in actually photographing the subject.”

The goal of visualizing is, of course, to knowwhere it is you’re trying to get to creatively so thatyou can get on the right technical bus to get youthere. If you’ve ever sat in a room that you werethinking about repainting and just stared at theblank walls and tried to imagine what the finishedroom was going to look like in a different color,you’ve already done some visualizing (or pre-visualizing, as a lot of photographers refer to it). In fact, every time you look through your closet in

the morning and decide that your green shirt goesjust perfectly with your purple shoes, you’re pre-visualizing what your appearance will be onceyou’re dressed (those do go together, don’t they?).

HUMAN VISION VERSUS CAMERA VISION For some people, the concept of visualizationcomes naturally, but for most of us, it takes quitea bit of conscious practice. I don’t think it’s aninherent skill for anyone, though, so don’t befrustrated if your photos don’t automatically mir-ror the images in your head. Even Adams thoughtit was an acquired skill that photographers —including himself — had to learn.

The more photographs that you shoot and themore often you fail (and succeed), the better youbecome at knowing your subjects and getting thatgreat shot. Of course, not getting the picture only


ABOUT THIS PHOTOHow you expose a scene isentirely up to you. I decided thatit was the power of the profilethat I was after. So, I exposedfor the sky to create this silhou-ette. Shot using a 300mmNikkor lens at 1/125 sec., f/16 atISO 100, on a tripod.

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works as a learning tool if you take the time toanalyze exactly where you went wrong. For thatreason, it’s very important that you take the timeto study the exposures that you think failed and tryto figure out what went wrong. I’ve always foundthat to be a terribly painful process, especially ifyou’ve traveled thousands of miles to take the pic-tures, but it helps me improve my photography.

One of the inherent problems that all photogra-phers face (and even the masters of the mediumgrapple with this issue) is that the scene that yousee in your imagination and the image that thecamera sees are two radically different things —for quite a number of reasons. For one, when youare standing in front of a pretty landscape, all ofyour senses are taking in the scene. As you walkthrough a rural landscape (see 1-18), you areawash in a symphony of sensory overload: You’re

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hearing the wind rustle through the corn fields,you’re smelling the fresh-mown hay in the nearbyfields, you’re hearing the bellowing cows as theywait to be fed, and you’re feeling the warm morn-ing sun on your skin (wow, sounds like a greatplace!). All of these things profoundly affect thebeauty and intensity of the scene for you.

By comparison, your camera isn’t having nearly asmuch fun. Tragically, the sounds, the scents, andthe warm sun are completely lost on that expensivebit of technology. Also, while your eyes and brainare capable of admiring and absorbing a vast andsubtle range of highlights, shadows, and colors,your camera is somewhat handicapped. No digitalsensor can record all of the tones or gradations ofcolor that you can see, because the contrast rangethat your eyes and brain see and the contrast rangethat the camera records are extremely different.

ABOUT THIS PHOTO I like to drive the back roads looking for farm scenes to photograph, like this onein Iowa. However, you have to divorce yourself from the sensory overload and concentrate on the subject, thelight, and the exposure. Taken with an 18-70mm Nikkor lens; shot at 1/250 sec., f/9 at ISO 200, on a tripod.

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Therein lies the rub and that is exactly where thepower of visualization comes into play. Becauseyour camera can’t record every tone and colorthat your eyes see, you have to make a consciouseffort to decide how you want those tones andcolors recorded, and you have to know the limitsof your camera’s capabilities. You also have toaccept the cold, cruel realization that in manyscenes, particularly in high-contrast scenes, deci-sions have to be made and often certain aspectsof a scene have to be sacrificed. The goal, ofcourse, is not to throw the baby out with thebathwater. I photographed the treasure hunter(1-19) on a beach with very bright sun reflecting

off of the sea behind him. Had I tried to exposeto get detail in his face or clothes, the sea behindhim would have looked completely bleached out.Instead I chose to expose for that brightness andturn the man into a silhouette.

Here are a couple of tips that I found useful whenhoning my visualization skills

■ Keep a small notebook with you and takenotes. Each time you take a photograph; jotdown a few notes about what it was you weretrying to capture and why you exposed it theway you did. Even if you never look at thosenotes again, the act of analyzing the scene andwriting down your thoughts and goals forcesyou to focus more on what it was you saw andwanted to record. Let’s face it, most of us neverlooked twice at our high school geometrynotes, but in the act of taking them, we paidfar more attention to what was being taught.

■ Try to picture the finished photograph in aframe hanging in your living room. What isit that you want to see in that frame eachtime you walk into the room, and what is itthat you want your friends to notice or com-ment on first? Is it the stark shapes of themountain peaks? The contrast of the yellowof the autumn leaves against the rich bluesky? And what about the water in the stream:Do you want it frozen as it surges along, or doyou want a smooth satin ribbon of water flow-ing over the rocks? Each element of the sub-ject has to be considered, and you have todecide how you want each to be representedin the finished image.


ABOUT THIS PHOTO I used contrast to my advantage here byturning the man and his metal detector into a stark but interesting sil-houette. Taken with a 70-300mm Nikkor zoom lens and exposed for1/2000 second at f/5.6, IS0 400, handheld.

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Contrast is one of the most vexingproblems that all photographers

face, but there are a lot of simple solutions. In Chapter8, I show you several simple methods for dealing withexcessive contrast.

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Often all it takes to turn a mundane photographinto a memorable one is a simple adjustment inthe exposure, but first you need to try to visualizewhat you want in the final image. In the photo-graph of a red tulip in figure 1-20, I really wanted

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that rich red color to contrast with the green ofthe foliage, and so I took an overall meter readingusing my built-in matrix-metering mode and thenunderexposed one stop to increase saturation. Youdon’t have to have exotic locales to test many of

ABOUT THIS PHOTOA simple one-stop adjustmentin the exposure of this tulip wasenough to make the red colorreally pop out from its deepgreen surroundings. Taken witha compact digital camera andexposed for 1/60 at f/3.5, ISO100, handheld.

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METADATA Although I have always carried small notebooks with me when photographing,digital cameras have eliminated the need to write down exposure data because all digital cam-eras record the metadata (also called EXIF data) for every exposure that you make as a part ofthe image file. You can access this data through most image-editing or image-managementprograms, or with the software that came with your camera. The metadata records an extraor-dinary amount of data about each image, including the type of camera used, the lens focallength, exposure information, ISO, white balance, and even whether or not you had the flashon. Learn to access your data, and you can learn a tremendous amount about your images.Where was this gem of technological wizardry when I was learning photography?



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these techniques; your backyard, a small patio gar-den or a local park will do fine. The time to startthinking about how an image will look is not afteryou’ve pressed the shutter button, but before.That theory is just as true if you’re using the sim-ple point-and-shoot camera as it is if you’re usinga dSLR (digital single-lens-reflex) camera.

EXPOSURE AND MOODIn addition to revealing a subject or setting in aninteresting light and from an interesting angle, agood photograph should capture some of the emo-tional climate or mood of the moment — themystery of a woodland scene shrouded in mist, theforeboding of a storm brewing over a harbor, oreven the melancholy of a child sitting by himselfon the backyard swings. In landscapes, for exam-ple, weather often establishes the mood of ascene. After enduring a frustrating week of badweather along coastal Texas, I decided that get-ting shots of the weather, as in 1-21, was moreproductive than cursing the weather channel.Without mood, even some of the most stunningscenes in the world just fall flat because they carryno emotional weight. Mood captures the way amoment felt, not just the way that it looked.

If you’ve ever taken a snapshot of mountainscenery and had the photos come out muchdarker than you expected, but it turned out thatyou liked the moody look of the shot, that’s anexample of how a slight shift in exposure canenhance the emotional charge of a picture. Inthat particular case, your camera was fooled by thebright light bouncing off of the clouds and wastricked into underexposing the image. The exposure

may have been technically “wrong,” but that darkexposure really helped to elicit the mood of thescene — a happy and creative mistake.


How important is mood? The next time you’re ina big tourist destination, check out the pictureson the postcard rack. Postcard publishers go togreat lengths to make scenes as exciting andromantic as they can because that’s what sellscards. Face it, if you’re given a choice between apostcard of Miami Beach at high noon and onebathed in a radiant sunset, which one are yougoing to buy? Okay, if you’re a young male onspring break, you’re probably going to buy thecard that’s filled with the most females in bikinis,but even that is based on an emotional reactionto the scene. Take the bathing beauties off thebeach, and chances are you’ll move on to thecards with the most dramatic sunsets (and thoseare the ones you can send to mom).

Many factors can enhance the emotional charge ina scene, and exposure itself isn’t always a dominat-ing factor, but it can play a big role in intensifyingmood with certain subjects. Knowing how andwhen to tweak the exposure to help convey moodis very important, though, and it’s something tokeep in mind when you’re shooting potentiallydramatic scenes. For example, sometimes you justget lucky when it comes to finding moody scenes,

Mist and fog add a lot of atmos-phere to landscape shots, but they

can fool your camera’s meter into thinking there ismore light in a scene than there really is. In Chapter 10,I discuss techniques that provide accurate readings in avariety of weather situations.

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ABOUT THIS PHOTO A storm brewing over the Gulf of Mexico in the Padre Island NationalSeashore. Photographed with a compact digital camera and exposed for 1/60 at f/2.8, ISO 800, handheld.

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but tweaking the exposure still helps you exagger-ate the drama of the moment as shown in 1-22.

Bright and airy scenes tend to create happiermoods, and you can often enhance that mood bymaking your exposure just a tad lighter than thecamera’s meter indicates is a good exposure. Inthe shot of this little girl blowing bubbles in fig-ure 1-23, I intentionally made the exposurelighter by about one f-stop using exposure com-pensation to create a more summery, carefreemood. You have to be careful in lightening por-traits though, if you start to lose detail in theskin, you’ve gone too far.

The key thing to remember in shooting moodyscenes is not to be afraid of losing the shot bystraying too far from the (here’s that word again)correct exposure. Mood and emotional responseare based largely on the exaggeration of normalfactors, and photos are rarely as dramatic as theycould be if shot at a safe exposure. Experimentwith both moderate under- and overexposure tosee if the changes enhance mood. If the firstthing someone says when looking at one of yourmoody photographs is “Wow!” then you knowyou’re on the right path.


Exposure compensation is a quickway to add or subtract light from anexposure. I talk more about this fea-ture in Chapter 3.

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ABOUT THIS PHOTOI shot this wild sunset after astorm at a beach on Long IslandSound in Connecticut, and allthat I did to get the clouds sodark was to set a meter readingfor the bright area of the sky.This shot looks exactly as it didcoming out of my camera — Idid no editing. Shot with a70-300mm Nikkor lens at 1/500sec., f/5.9 at ISO 100, handheld.

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ABOUT THIS PHOTOWhen it comes to portraits, I liketo try and match the exposureto the mood — in this case,going slightly on the lighter sideto enhance the happy mood.Shot with a compact digitalcamera and exposed for 1/160at f/2.8, ISO 100.

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AssignmentPractice Your Exposure Skills on a Piece of ArchitectureFor your first assignment, I’d like you to photograph a piece of architecture — either in whole, ora piece of architectural detail. This is the first assignment I’ve been giving my students for yearsand one of the main reasons is that buildings are stationary — you can return to them as oftenas you like at different times of day and in different weather. Your “building” can be anything youlike: the dog house in your backyard, your local city hall, or perhaps your favorite hot dog stand.Visit it several times and see if you can’t find the true personality of the building. Don’t worryabout creative exposure yet — just get a good basic exposure in the automatic mode.

I photographed this detail of the Vanderbilt Mansion in Hyde Park, New York. I’d been trying toget a good shot of the entire building all day and then just as the sun hit the horizon, its last raysignited this bit of detail and I knew I had found an interesting shot. I quickly shot several expo-sures, but this was one of two or three that I really liked. Taken with a compact digital camera at1/57 second, f/6.5, and ISO 100.

Remember to visit www.pwassignments.com after you complete this assignmentand share your favorite photo! It’s a community of enthusiastic photographersand a great place to view what other readers have created. You can also post com-ments, and read encouraging suggestions and feedback.



Exposure Photo Workshop: Develop Your Digital Photography Talent Sample Chapter

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