Creative Exposure | Light Magic

My photography has entered a new stage of learning.

A creative exposure begins long before the camera comes to my eye. Ironically, the images begins in my minds eye.

Seeing, feeling the quality and direction of the Light and then, this is the magic moment, capturing the "feeling" of the moment.

I came across a statement/qoute; "shoot what it feels like". It took me a while to fully understand this.

Shoot what it "feels" like - this got me thinking,

Can a moment have such a depth of emotion that it triggers a feeling with in me?

I have come to know this to be true.

This feeling I came to discover is all about the emotional content in the moment and the quality and direction of the light. Not only that, the light has a certain tempreture / cool or warm. To me this became a light bulb moment in my data base of knowledge.

With the image above, I came out of Canary Wharf Station confronted by this view. It looked like The Mother Ship from Space - it felt eerie so I adjusted my White Balance and colour profile to Vivid Velvia to give me this deep rich blue cold expression.

This image felt somewhat warmer so I warmed up my white balance knowing the colours would pop and give me a fantastic rendition of colourful light.

One thing has made a big difference to my exposures; I am paying more attention to my choice of metering.

My Camera has at least three options:

• Matrix

• Centre Weighted

• Spot

These three Metering options allow me to best decided how to initiate my exposure - a creative exposure.

The image below was created using Centre Weighted Metering. I chose this option because I wanted the light falling on my subject to be exposed correctly and with priority.

As the light levels dropped, I switched to Spot Metering and made the brightest parts of the image my subject.

I am gaining a better understanding of how my camera meters / interact with the light. This means I am being more intentional about how the light renders my subject to my eyes. This then becomes my creative challenge; to interpret what I see using my camera.

Interpreting the light is the ongoing study now.

To be continued.