I blow out highlights!!
During my last (my 28th year) Maine Media Workshop, I was working with a fellow photographer and the moment before she clicked the shutter, her LCD screen exploded with blinking black areas going on in the hightlighted areas. This meant that those areas were being overexposed or “clipped” as what’s said by those that don’t know what they’re talking about.
I think “visually undesirable” is what I’ve been told by students (who were told this) that take my online class with the BPSOP. I’ve also had similar conversations in my own “Stretching Your Frame of Mind” workshops I conduct around the planet.
I digress.
“Egads”, I yelled to no one in particular, “make it stop blinking, I’ll tell you anything you want to know!!” The student relayed to me that she had been told that whenever she encountered the blinking, to immediately stop what she was doing because she was about to overexpose an area. It also annoyed her (not knowing what it meant) and how did she take it off.
Seriously? The only reason anyone (not in their right mind) would want to do that is if they wanted to be led (blindfolded) down that one way path to mediocrity. Or maybe they wanted to have the slightest chance in winning a blue ribbon at their camera club’s annual competition.
Here’s what I think…Get that blinking stuff off you camera. Go to settings on your camera and where it says “highlight alert” disable it. Believe me it’s a better thing you do than you’ve ever done before…why?
Because one of the ways to generate visual tension is contrast and another is the use of light. Those blown out (clipped) areas brings energy to your images. I don’t always blow out the highlights because there’s a time and place for everything. That said, whenever there are bright highlights in my composition I’m always looking to blow them out.
It’s easier said than done because if you use the meter in your camera, more than likely it’s going to give you an average exposure of the highlighted and shadow areas; based on what the meter is set on. For best results, set your meter on spot and try exposing just for the areas in shadow; this will blow out the highlights.
For most of my almost fifty year career, I’ve used a Minolta One-Degree Spot Meter. It’s an external hand held meter (you can find them on e-Bay) that can read just one degree of reflected light, which gives me total control to do as I please to my photo.
I prefer the energy, so next time blow out the highlights my fellow photographers and you won’t spend eternity in photographic purgatory.
Visit my website at: www.joebaraban.com, and check out my 2017 workshop schedule at the top of this blog. Come shoot with me in Vienna/Budapest next May and enjoy two beautiful and historical cities.Don’t forget to send me a photo and question to: AskJoeB@gmail.com, and I’ll create a video critique for you.
JoeB
