Correct exposure vs. beautiful exposure
There is a difference between a correct and a good exposure. You can theoretically make a correct exposure in any amount of light, even in the middle of the night, with a long enough shutter speed, but the same is not necessarely true for a good exposure, because a more important criteria than the amount of light, is the quality of light.
Light meter is not a beauty meter
Whether it is a built-in or a handheld one, a light meter is still just a light meter. It only tells you how much light is needed in order to make a, so called, correct exposure. It doesn’t, how ever, know anything about light quality. A correct exposure can still give you a really dank photo, if the light is ugly, no matter how correctly it is exposed.
Let us remind ourselves that photography literally means to draw with light. It is the main incridient and the quality of the incredients will of course determine the outcome.
When you’re cooking, it is just as important to have the right amount of incredients, as it is to have just the right kind of incredients. It can make a difference between a tasteless TV dinner and a cuisine.
This is my idea of excellent light. A bit hars sunlight perhaps, but the way it reacts with the emulsions, renders such a pleasing exposure. A big thank you to Meri for modelling.
Film loves light
Film especially loves light and as a film photographer you will very quickly learn to recognise and appreciate good light. In my opinion, natural light (sun light, in other words) looks the most pleasing on film. Artificial lighting not so much, but that could just be a personal preference. Digital photography allows you to get away with more compromising lighting conditions as it generally out-performs film in low light. Film on the other hand handles highlights and harsh contrast much better, if you ask me. These two mediums register light very differently compared to each other.
I’m writing this on January, during the darkest time of the year, here on the northern hemisphere. The days are not only short, but the type of light that we tend to have is drab. The skies are often heavy with lead-grey clouds that are polar opposite compared to those cute, puffy cumulus clouds of the summer. January clouds are quite often just thick veils of depression, covering the entire sky.
I could still go out to shoot and I would be able to get correct exposures. There certainly is enough light to make images, there is no question about that. How ever, it is challenging to make pleasing exposures with that light. (Again a personal preference.) I could use some of the longer shutter speeds and open up the aperture to allow enough light to enter the film plane, in order to make a perfectly good exposure, but it is just not the same as making a beautiful exposure. As a result, those miserable January skies tend to render the lighting conditions to very flat, low-contrast scenes.
There are few tricks to combat it. You can try to enhance contrast by pushing film by couple of stops or just adjusting the contrast curves in post production, whether that is in the darkroom or in editing software. (Much like you’d pull film when shooting in harsh light in order to tame the contrast.) I’d argue though, that it is still not as good as having a nice lighting conditions to begin with.
35mm street scene on a foggy november day. The weather was beyond miserable. This was one of the very few occasions when I was able to pull something nice out of such a grey day. Heavy fog tends to make things look great though, so maybe it was the saving grace here.
Another attempt at street photography during the winter months. Not a bad photo by any means and the gritty aesthetics, with it’s distinct graininess goes together rather well with the subject matter. You can see however that the actual exposure is sure enough somewhat muddy due to the heavily overcast conditions. Whether that’s a good or bad thing, is up to you.
What does correct exposure even mean?
It is worth asking what is a correct exposure? Or beautiful for that matter?
What one considers beautiful is of course objective. What one considers as correct is just as objective as well, so all this is a one big generalisation with plenty of room for exceptions and interpretation. Photograph is a sum of a whole bunch of variables with no absolute laws of what makes it good.
If you think about it, even your light meter doesn’t know what a correct exposure is in terms of your goals and artistic visions. It can only tell you what combination of shutter speeds and aperture are needed in order to get a usable, middle grey exposure, but it can’t tell you anything how your subject should be interpreted. Maybe you want to create a silhouette? Or maybe you want to over-expose on purpose to make smoother skin tones. Or maybe you want to make a somber image and choose to underexpose slightly to make a low-key image. Are you metering from the highlights, mid-tones or shadows? What you consider correct may be quite different from your light meters interpretation.
One of my favourite street shots ever, even though far from perfect. The lighting wasn’t the greatest as it was, once again, a very overcast day during November. The exposure itself is spot on, as you can see, but the quality of the light isn’t exactly optimal. Does that really matter though? I’m certainly happy about this photo as there are other more important things going on in the image than the light, but since we’re talking about light quality here, I though I’d use this as an example.
