Let Your Shadows Be!
Why They’re Your Best Tools in Photography
I’ve seen many tutorials on how to preserve details in shadows or to recover them. I can understand the urge to do this in real estate or product photography when you need to depict things as they are without much photographer’s input. However, when it comes to artistic photography, our goal isn’t always to replicate reality exactly as we see it.
This difference becomes particularly relevant, especially if you’re shooting with APS-C or micro four-thirds cameras, as achieving a wide dynamic range can be challenging, even with your best efforts. It’s important to recognize that our equipment has its limitations. To capture everything with a broad dynamic range, you’d typically need top-of-the-line gear, which may not be very affordable for most people.
The real way to preserve detail in your shadows is to buy a top full-frame or medium-format camera. But even then not all shadows will be captured. All of the cameras capture up to 15 stops and the eye sees up to 24 stops.
Aside from a good camera, you can use artificial light and adjust it to have only soft shadows, without any harsh light dynamics. You will be limited to shooting in a studio or spending thousands for each photo shoot, bringing a whole van of lighting equipment just to preserve the details in the shadows.
When You Keep The Shadows Dark
Another solution is to stop trying to preserve these details. Every time you expand your shadows in the editing software, you compromise the compositional dynamics of your frame while also introducing grainy and noisy grey areas that were initially intended to be your shadows.
Photography is the art of light and shadows are the absence of light, so why focus on the absence of light if we work with its presence?
The best solution that comes to every photographer and painter at some point is to focus on light and let the shadows do their thing!
Let the shadows be dark! It’s what they are!
Shadows are a part of your composition, just like highlights. When you brighten your shadows, you make the entire light spectrum more uniform and less dynamic.
Shadows As A Tool For Minimalism
Aside from that, shadows can effectively separate your subjects from the background or foreground. Given that we perceive the world in 2D+ (although we lack true 3D vision, our binocular vision creates a semblance of depth), visual separation naturally occurs between objects at varying distances. However, photographs are inherently 2D and often lack this degree of separation. Consequently, if you merely capture scenes as they appear before you, you might encounter an excess of details overlapping one another, resulting in visual clutter.
Shadows Can Help You To Hide Some Of The Details.
That’s why I find it easier to take photographs when it’s sunny. During cloudy days, the light scatters in all directions, resulting in the absence of distinct shadows.
My own work adopted a much more minimalist and clean aesthetic when I began to incorporate shadows and grasped their influential role. However, it’s important to strike the right balance with minimalism. If you strip away all the details, your shots might lose their intended meaning.
Simultaneously, during the learning process, it’s beneficial to start by mastering the art of focusing on a single element within your compositions before gradually introducing more elements.
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