Saturday, April 30, 2016

Look For The Light

  
I've just returned from a wonderful week in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park with a great group of photographers. We had great weather, great shooting, and great fun.

This fiddle head fern was in full sun, as was the background. So how did I get it into the shade? Easy - I shaded it with my body. I was careful to position myself so that the shadow I cast fell only on the fern and not on the background. 

That was step one. Step two was to set the camera height so that the fiddle head was positioned in front of the sunlit area. 

Creating this shot was not difficult but it required careful attention to detail. The soft focus fern leaves at the bottom and the upper right create a feeling of enclosure and add to the strength of the composition.   

Exposure was relatively easy since about half of the image was in sun and half in shade. So the basic meter reading worked well. As always, consult the histogram when taking images in mixed light to be sure that the exposure is good for both the highlights and the shadows.

TECHNICAL DATA
Shutter Speed 1/320 sec.  Aperture f/5.  ISO 400.  Lens: Canon 100mm macro f/2.8L IS.  Handheld.

TODAY'S QUOTE: "To love beauty is to see light."  --Victor Hugo

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