It took me 20 years to find this because no one taught it until now.
In this primer on shadow hacking I’m going to share was I found. If you follow my work you have seen me shift focus to shadow over light. Not to say ignore light, but that there so much focusing on the light has only caused us to learn half of what makes great photos.
Not signed up for my Shadow-Hackers LIVE class? Sign up it here.
Should you lift or drop shadows? Push or pull exposure. How do we bend the shadow in new ways and why doe sit matter. Today I’ll show you some examples and if you attend my Shadow Hackers hackers class you’ll be ahead of the curve for watching this.
Look for where your shadows are broken and stop photographing light.
I hope this is coming across. I promise that if you start looking to photograph shadow, it’s going to change how you use to light your camera and what kind of results you get. Try this and see for yourself.
Gavin Seim
Things I used to edit with today… My new Elegance Speed Masks… seimeffects.com/elegance Filmist, get my free presets… seimeffects.com/filmist/ Lumist actions… seimeffects.com/lumist BlackRoom actions… seimeffects.com/blackroom Natural HDR4… seimeffects.com/dynamic
What a beautiful place to spend the morning with my son. It was mid April and in the mountains of Utah there were still dotted with snow. We camped off Sheep Creek Road the previous night and I went out early with my son to Solder Summit.
I made this on my large format system in the Utah mountains. I had seen all this beautiful color the day before and was amazed by how vibrant it was. We’re used to seeing such colors in the Fall. But Spring was just coming in and still the color sang in the Utah hills. I love this State.
I love Aspens too. No matter when you look at them they’re stunning. My 4 year old and I discovered this remote spot filled with color and lots of bare Aspen groves, just as the sun was streaking across the hills. The sky was blue and the snows were melting. Afterward we stopped an a little gas station on the summit and bought snacks before heading back to the trailer and the rest of the family for a peaceful afternoon drive into Salt Lake.
Release details: Prints Available.. Order Open Edition originals above.. Master prints and Signature Limited Editions are listed below and can be ordered by contacting gallery.
Released prints….
43 inch Signature Canvas – Limited Edition of, 20 (contact the gallery)
36 inch Signature Canvas – Limited Edition of, 100 (contact the gallery)
I’m amazed how often the control of light and dark is ignored in today’s photography. Our tools are more powerful than ever, but most images lack the subtle tonal control that made photographers like Ansel so famous. Such control is essential to making an image look as good as it can.
“Tone” may be the least understood and least utilized factor in composing and finishing images.” That’s a quote from master photographer, Ken Whitmire. He’s eighty-two and one of the world’s most renowned pioneers of wall portraiture.
I wrote an article called 5 Essential Keys to Photographic Perfection on Pro Photo Show. One of these keys is arguably the most important, and that is tonal control. Lights and shadows and how they look in the final image are critical. To best achieve them, you should have a “visualization” for your final image and be a master of essential tone control elements.
Morgan's Song, 2011 - This is an environmental scene so we have a lot of "supporting cast" to deal with. By placing the subject at Zones 6-8 in the final process and the supporting cast mostly in Zones 2-4, I was able to keep the subject dominant and show the scene I had envisioned.
An image can look good with just a quick global correction process, but not nearly as good as it could be with proper tonal control. It starts in camera as you see the scene in your mind’s eye . The way you expose and set up your image can control those values. The best way I have found to see this in my mind is by using the Zone Scale (see Fig. 1).
For example, a perfect light is splitting through the clouds and shining on your subject. You expose for the subject’s skin, visualizing it for Zone 6. Perhaps that bumps the foliage and other elements (the supporting cast) of your scene down to Zone 4. That could be perfect because it makes your subject dominant. Perhaps the light is more even, however, and to achieve that visualization, you need to do tonal corrections later to bring that foliage down to Zone 4. It could be done in many other ways, but you get the initial idea. For an in depth look at Zones check out, Why You Need the Zone System for Digital.
Following are three things to watch for when visualizing and mastering an image to control tonal values. If you understand and apply these principles at every step, your images will improve by giant leaps. Follow through on tonal values and your images will sing.
Figure 1: The Zone scale from 1-10. Middle grey is Zone V (5). This shows the darkest dark to the lightest light and is invaluable for simple visualizing and exposing a scene. Each step represents a stop, making it easy to move your exposure up or down and place an element in a given zone.
Simplicity is key to a great photograph. It turns even complex scenes into stunning beauty by controlling elements, light, and tone.
It’s not about how much is in a photograph. It’s about how we showcase our subject in relation to that supporting cast of elements. Now I’m not suggesting the images I show are “perfect.” It’s rare that I get everything dead on, and I can always find something I should have done better. But truly understanding and mastering these elements WILL raise the bar on our images and allow us to see in a new way.
1. Visualize.
Everyone says they’re doing it, but few actually are. You should truly “see” the scene in your mind’s eye; not what’s in the viewfinder but the finished image after the exposure, even after editing. You should see the image you want after the process is finished. It’s fairly simple, but in the rush we often fail to slow down and think carefully about the lines, elements, and tones in our scene. That’s one reason why I love working with a tripod. It takes my focus away from holding a camera and puts it on the scene in front of me.
Ansel Adams said, “The whole key lies very specifically in seeing it in the mind’s eye which we call visualization.”
Sunsets Hidden Falls, Yosemite 2010, Gavin Seim - I used a layer based HDR process on this, processing my light and dark frames as silver and layer blending in Photoshop. I spent a good deal of time on the composition and tonal control to try and keep the scene simple while still showing all the elements. You can see the stone faces on Zones 6-7, with the foreground elements falling drastically all the way down to Zone 1, keeping them as supporting cast from becoming too distracting.
2. The Light & The Zones.
Expose for what you want in your image, not what the camera sees. This goes right along with visualization, and the Zone scale is the best way I know of, both to visualize and to control values. It allows us to see in our mind’s eye the Zones in a scene and place them where we want, using exposure, and finally tonal edits. For more on detailed tonal value control, see the counter article to this one, 3 Critical Elements of Controlling Tonal Values.
The Zone scale from 1-10. Middle grey is Zone V (5). This shows the darkest dark to the lightest light and is invaluable for simple visualizing and exposing a scene. Each step represents a stop, making it easy to move your exposure up or down and place an element in a given zone.
Three Pines. Kaibab National Forest, near the Grand Canyon. Spring 2011.
The night is intriguing to me as a photographer. Stars trail through the heavens, and branches rustle as winds sift through the darkness. The world turns unnoticed by most of its occupants, and yet it is not still at all.
Night photography is a challenge; I have to go against my natural preference to be relaxed comfortably in a warm house or trailer rather than standing in darkness often cold, wondering what made that cracking sound I just heard behind me. The next challenge is the technical difficulty of making the image and composition in darkness and having the patience for an ultra long exposure. This one was over 45 minutes.
At times like this one, I can set up the image and go back to said warm camper and family, as the faint light works its magic. At times, my night exposures do not come out as I expect, and some never see the pages of this journal, but as I further explore the darker side my craft, I find moments like this when the simplicity and natural beauty of the elements draw my eye and make me smile at the wonder of creation.
This image is not perfect, and I’m undecided as to whether it will make the signature collection, but I do enjoy it, and it has taught me much about light and shadow…
