After my Podcast yesterday, I was flooded with emails about underexposing when shooting in snow. You’d think I’d said something really political by some of the responses. To start with, shooting with the D5 / D500, these three photos if I were to shoot them today (these are older images), I would dial in -2/3 exp comp to communicate the feeling you see in the images. And this is where most photographers get lost with my message. I’m not exposing for some graph or somebodies theory. I’m exposing for my heart because exposure = emotion. In telling the story, we must put what we’re feeling in the photo for those not standing beside us when we went click!
The slight warmth coming from the rising sun on the Bison can be felt because of the overwhelming cold in the photo. The deer looks safe because of the overall warmth in the entire photo super imposes over the natural feeling of cold from the snow. And that tinge of warmth on the Polar Bear walking the edge of the Beaufort Sea is because of the two colors in the frame. And that color is coming from underexposing to bring out the blue and using WB to maintain the warmth. Understand, this is all being done at the point of capture, not in post. This is thinking through the subject, the story and the emotion YOU want to place in your photo when you’re at the camera. This is not easy stuff because you have to reach down inside and feel this through your being and then use the clinical controls of the camera to bring it to life in your photo. But that’s what brings joy to these cold worlds. When you insert yourself into the photo and come up with success!
