Too Close Encounter

About five or six years ago I started seriously photographing Oklahoma's Tallgrass Prairie preserve.  It's an amazing landscape full of not just scenic bounty, but a rich, diverse history as well.  It's 38,000 acres is the largest protected area of original tallgrass prairie that remains.

The best way to photograph this area is to observe it up close...to explore the hidden arroyo's and fields of wildflowers away from the gravel access road.  By hiking into the interior, a whole new world is opened.  It's during those times the song of the prairie becomes vivid and real.  I've taken thousands of photo's there...sat for hours under the shade of an isolated red cedar tree...simply listened to the wind and the sounds of the open range.  It's an amazing experience.

On one such excursion, I experienced something that was not only amazing...but a bit unnerving.  I had hiked a mile or so into an area where an arroyo  cuts through the rolling hills.  I spent most of the morning in there photographing this and that, but mostly just enjoying being out.  By late morning it started to warm up so I worked my way out of there.  I had to climb up the long face of a shallow hill and as I moved around to the south side I discovered that a herd of about 100 or so bison had wandered between me and my Jeep effectively blocking my way out.

It was not a good idea to attempt passing through the herd so I backtracked a ways and stepped down into a dry creek bed.  Using the creek bed I figured I would just circle around and come out a bit further north then cut over to the road.  After walking several hundred yards I stepped out of the creek bed.  My view was limited while down in there so I didn't see that the northern flank of the bison herd was still blocking my route...as were two rather large bison bulls.  They were about 50 maybe 60 yards away.

Well..I sort of spooked them...if there is such a thing as spooking twin 2000 pound bison bulls...and they took offense to me being there.  I may have spooked them, but I certainly didn't intimidate them as they began to snort and act all agitated.  Normally they are rather docile...but these two guys wanted to express their displeasure about my presence personally.

I tried to slowly back away and reenter the creek bed, but before I could do so the two bulls busted and they started running...accompanied by the rest of the assorted 100 or so others in their company...right at me.  All I had to hide behind was a rather flimsy camera tripod...which wasn't much comfort.  For a few seconds I simply stood there...well...actually there wasn't much else I could have done short of running...and I wsn't going to outrun those guys...but fortunately, the entire herd veered away after 25 or 30 yards and ran off in the opposite direction.

I moved on down the creek bed another hundred yards or so then worked my way back to the road and eventually to my Jeep.  Those two bulls never took their eyes off me...nor I them.  I must admit though...it was an exhilarating experience to be so close to such wild, powerful, and magnificent creatures.  I took not a single photograph of the entire event...I was a bit preoccupied trying to avoid becoming a permanent addition to the Tallgrass Prairie landscape.

Shoot the Transitions

If you have followed this blog at all, you will have learned by now how I emphasize that photography is all about light...not the quantity of light, but the quality of light.  Quality light comes from many sources and is influenced by time, place, season, subject, angles, color, and intensity.  More importantly, quality light depends on you the photographer to seek it out and recognize it.

Recognizing quality light takes a bit of practice, but there are a few things you can count on to almost always find it.  One of the easiest is to 'shoot the transitions'.  Transitions are those times during the course of any given day when the light begins to change from one form to another...high to low, low to high, cool to warm, warm to cool, direct to filtered...and so on.  let me give you some examples.

The most obvious transition occurs at sundown when the bright and flat light of the day begins to drift toward a warmer, sometimes bolder, sometime more subtle, colors when the angle of the sun has to filter through a thicker part of the atmosphere.  Sunsets are also somewhat of a cliche...everyone photographs them and there isn't a sunset that has ever happened that hasn't been photographed somewhere...sometime.  I still find myself drawn to them, but I often instead photograph the effects of the sunset light as opposed to the direct sunset itself.  The soft warm nature of the sunset light casts a warm glow on everything it touches.  Sunrise on the other hand can offer an even more variety of transitional lighting conditions.  The predawn sky can vary from soft pastels to bold reds and yellows.  The trick is to use these color transitions within the context of time and place.

Although sunsets and sunrises offer the most common form of transitional light, other circumstances provide wonderful transitional opportunities.  Just before or just after a thunderstorm when the overcast is breaking apart or just gathering are two of my favorite transitional situations.  Some the most dramatic light is found where there are contrast of dark and light.  Dark and ominous skies offer great contrast of grays, blacks, and whites as they mix in the atmosphere.

Another often underutilized transition light is where bright beams of light contrast with darker surroundings...an example being inside a barn with light filtering through the cracks in the boards or under a canopy of trees when light penetrates to the floor.  Although difficult to generate correct exposure...they are not impossible problems.

Fog is probably my favorite transitional light.  I am always keeping tabs on the weather.  Here in Kentucky we have a lot of fog...and many times the first day or so after a rain the fog will develop in the low areas and across the fields early of a morning and sometimes right at dusk.

Transitional light does not have to solely be associated with the outdoors.  Reflected light bouncing off or through something is a type of transitional light as it is changed from direct light into indirect light.  Some of the best moody light is that mysterious reflected light illuminating a person's face against a dark background...or filtered light coming through and opaque object like glass or thin material.

Shooting the transitions will provide potentially wonderful quality light.  It's just a matter of anticipating ahead of time the conditions that might develop...and then being there.  Use transitional light to your advantage and you will begin to see a transition of your images from ordinary...to extraordinary.

Keith

The Mystery of Exposure - Part 3

One of the biggest mistakes novice photographers make is to believe that the camera will always give you a correct exposure for every lighting circumstance.

In part 1 we looked at the elements that make up the exposure triangle and followed up with a discussion in part 2 on how those elements work together.  In part 3 we're going to look at how the camera sees light and how the metering system applies the exposure values.

Have you ever returned from a vacation with a stack of photos to share only to have your friends quickly thumb through them..."Those are very nice..." they say.  Sort of deflating...as you say "Well...you had to be there...the pictures just don't do it justice."  There's a reason for that.

What we see visually can often be spectacular because of how our eye and brain work together to create an image in our mind.  We visually are able to distinguish between a wide range of contrasts, colors, and depths and are able to filter out all the clutter.  Contrary to popular belief, the camera does not see light the same way we visually perceive light.  A camera can only evaluate the intensity of the light that enters through the lens...then based on that evaluation make a programmed guess as to what the exposure should be.  That programmed guess is based on what is call the 18% neutral gray value.

The Thru the Lens or TTL metering systems built into cameras today are sophisticated computerized processes and will for the most part do a pretty good job of determining a workable exposure solution.  There are variations in the way they work, but all metering systems fundamentally do the same thing...They simply  take an average of the metered light and sets exposure values that are shifted toward the middle.  Remember the black to white light scale where the middle is a neutral gray.

There are three basic metering modes that TTL systems use:  Matrix or Evaluative, Center Weighted, and Spot.  Matrix/Evaluative meters the light across the entire spectrum of the view.  Center Weighted does the same thing except it places a higher value on an area concentrated around the center of the view.  Spot metering allows the photographer to meter off a specific area...or spot...like a face, or band of a distant hill...without  having the rest of the view skew the reading.  All three have their advantages and disadvantages.

Ninety percent of understanding the mystery of exposure is based on understanding how the metering systems work.  Using the strengths and weaknesses of each will give you an advantage when it comes to capturing those great shots.

Let me give you an example.  Take for instance photographing snow.  Snow is very bright and white.  Visually, even on cloudy days snow still looks white to us because our brain is able to recognize it as such.
But, the camera responds to bright white circumstances differently that what we see visually.

Allowing the camera to select the exposure will tend to make snow look a dingy gray (top image) as a result...think about it for a moment.  Why is that?  Well the camera doesn't know the difference between a snow field and coal field. The TTL meter wants to move everything toward the middle...or neutral gray.  Visualize the scale again...the white value of snow falls toward the outer white edge of the scale.  The camera wants to set an exposure that moves toward the middle...which is gray...thus white snow will often look gray as a result.

How do we get around that?  By using the Exposure Compensation (EV or AV +/-). This tool is something you need to understand and use.  On the back or top of most cameras you will see a button marked with +/-.  This button is used to trick the camera into shifting the exposure it wants to make, either more toward the lighter (+) or more toward the darker (-).  Going back to the snow scene...the camera wants to shift it toward the gray...you want it to look white...so...what would you do?

The plus (+) sign adds light to the exposure and the minus (-) removes light from the exposure.  To make the snow appear more white...you would have to add light to the exposure by using the + compensation.  Just how much depends on the circumstances...snow may require as little as +0.3 of a stop to more than one full stop higher (+1.0).  (bottom image)  Too much can create an over exposed situation...so be careful.

This concept applies to almost any bright (or dark) object including beach sand, buildings, birds, animals, even the sky..and to any color...not just black or white.  A dark red barn will have it's color shifted to a more neutral lighter red color...green grass is already a neutral color and will often remain unaffected...Are you beginning to get the idea? Just for grins...what would happen if you took a photo of a pile of coal ...very black.  You figure out what would happen and how you would compensate.  Understanding how the camera sees light and how to use the exposure compensation gives you a huge advantage.

This three part series was designed to get you to thinking about what the camera is doing and to use its capabilities to your advantage..not as a full blown workshop on exposure.  Even so, if this information helps you move forward, then the series accomplished its goal.  Todays cameras take a lot of the guess work out of the exposure process...but leave enough gaps open so you can begin to use the artistic flair that resides inside every photographer.  Knowing how to blend that artistic value with technical understanding is what separates the ordinary snapshot from artistically expressive images.

Keith