© Michael Heller

A PERSONAL PHOTOGRAPHIC PERSPECTIVE

Strong Color, Hard Light

 

Years ago, I had a job photographing a fireworks display. The burning house above was a part of it. At the time, my next door neighbor was also a photographer. Matter of factly he said to me: Your exposure will be 1/30 @ 5.6 For the Ektachrome film we used in those das. That turned out to be good advice. Ansel Adams introduced me to the spot meter. It is an essential tool for performing the magic of the Zone System. Today's camera meters are superb but previsualizing the picture and correctly rendering the area at the average exposure is still important. The snow would have overpowered the meter so my exposure was based on the light reflected from my hand. The balloon was in full shade with full sun behind it, the exposure was about a stop under what the camera said. The night scene needed to be at 1/60 to stop the car so the f-stop was computed to allow enough light for the people outside. Here a spot meter gave me a reading from a distance, but I could just as easily have walked closer and used my camera meter.

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