I blow out highlights.
First of all, let me explain what is meant by “clipping the highlights”:
According to several definitions I’ve read over the information highway, clipping occurs when there is an incorrect exposure. When an exposure is increased so is the amount of light, and increasing the exposure too far will cause the lightest areas in your photograph to ‘clip’ or appear ‘blown out’.
Here’s one of those definitions, and would I love to meet the person that wrote it!!!!!
“The clipped area of the image will typically appear as a uniform area of the minimum or maximum brightness, losing any image detail. The amount by which values were clipped, and the extent of the clipped area, affect the degree to which the clipping is visually noticeable or undesirable in the resulting image.”
UNDESIRABLE??? SERIOUSLY???? If you’re the one that wrote this please contact me so I can try to get your head screwed back on so you’ll see where you’re going instead of always looking behind you and in the past.
It’s always amazing to me when a student tells me that he had a photography instructor or a fellow member of the camera club, tell him or her to never clip the highlights. It’s also amazing when I’m looking at the back of a student’s digital camera and there’s a bunch of “blinking stuff” on it.
This conversation comes up a lot in my online class with the BPSOP and in my “Stretching Your Frame of Mind”, workshop I conduct all around the planet.
The first thing I tell my fellow photographers is to get that stuff off of their display. You know, the areas that blink when they’re being clipped.
It would drive me crazy!!! In fifty-three years of shooting professionally I’ve NEVER, and I do mean NOT ONCE ever worried or even thought about whether my highlights were clipped; I want that energy…that visual tension!!
Always remember this: “The viewer will always react to that which is most different.” It’s what I teach/preach when I talk about the Psychology of Gestalt and how the different concepts within it can help us make stronger images.
Here’s some examples of when I clip the highlights:
My last thought on this is when those same fellow photographers tell me that during their camera clubs yearly competition, if they were to submit an image where areas are blown out they’re either disqualified or told to go sit in a corner; can you just image the degradation one would encounter?
The answer I usually give is for them to start their own camera club that encourages photographers to color outside the lines.
Blow out those highlights, and be damn proud of it.
Visit my website at: www.joebaraban.com and check out my 2018 workshop schedule at the top of this blog. Come shoot with me sometime. I’ve a couple of openings in my Springtime in Berlin workshop next May 23rd. A fantastic city with so many great locations we’re going to be shooting.
In conjunction with The Santa Fe Workshops, October 2nd I’ll be leading a group in San Miguel de Allende. A beautiful oasis and artist colony, and the entire city is a UNESCO site.
Come join me for a week of fun and photography…what could be better?
JoeB
