It was one of those clear blue, dewy mornings at Osh as Jake & I walked the line. This morning, we decided to work the B-25s with “Betty’s Dream” present. I spend my time with just “Devil Dog” and “Betty’s Dream” especially doing arse shots. Once the sun came up, the shooting was already wrapping up. I walked around to the front and saw the sun squeezing past the B-25 tail. I closed the 18-35AFS all the way down, took a couple of shots, and kept on going. What you see above is what I saw, what the camera accurately captured at first but definitely not the final photo I saw when I went click. The D4 faithfully captured what was there. I had dialed in -1exp comp, I had raised the WB to 6k and with that input the D4 did it’s job. Now it was time to do mine!
B-25 “Devil Dog” finished captured by D4 / 18-35AFS
Here’s the deal, I have to know light and bring it to the subject. Whether that light is falling perfectly or as in this case, not so perfect, the light is on me. Remember the word photograph loosely mean, “write with light.” How’d I “light” “Devil Dog” in post? Well, that’s the class I’m teaching today at Photoshop World. The key is, shoot for the subject, finish for the light. You know how I shot it and the finishing, well you’d need to be in class for all of that. But it was done in ACR using their power Masking. The key to both shooting for the subject and finishing for the light of course is, the light. The photographer must understand light. Not just exposure but how it works. How it works in the camera, how it works in post and most importantly, how it works to the viewer. I think though you can see what some call a dramatic difference in the top and bottom photos. For me though, the bottom photo is all I saw in the viewfinder and on the computer monitor the whole time. That’s because I know the light, it’s on us!