Rob Trek Forum

Almost every photography tutorial you've ever watched will tell you how to "correctly" expose every part of the image so you don't lose shadow or highlight detail. Alongside the so-called "rules of composition", it is constantly drummed into apprentice photographers that they should expose to the right. Why?

In this video, you'll see why what you're being taught will produce a uniformity of exposure, but where nothing in your picture will ever stand out. It's why so many images fail to contain any "narrative"; where the viewer is left to go figure for himself. Whereas by adjusting your exposure curves (which can be done in-camera) your electronic viewfinder will allow you to see the exciting possibilities contained in what is an otherwise quite mundane image.

Watch "CHIAROSCURO — The Dynamic Range Mistake" on YouTube

Chiaroscuro in combination with a very wide format is what I use, almost as a signature, in most of my professional photography. I set up my camera so that the electronic viewfinder shows me this affect, and captures a jpeg of the same. While my master image is the RAW file that I'll later turn into a more finely tuned Chiaroscuro effect in post processing.

Here, below, is an image outtake from the video, showing how a very ordinary photograph of someone in a bar can be transformed. There is no longer any confusion about where the eye is drawn, and the relatively less important background or contextual information is underplayed. It's another case of where applying "the rules" will give you a technically well exposed yet very average image versus breaking those so-called "rules" will transform that image into something exceptional.

Enjoy,
Rick Bear
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Great article and ditto videos, Rick.

maybe this could be an example

Les negresses vertes by PATRICK GYSEN, on Flickr

Yes, PLATO, try playing with the curves in Lightroom or Capture One, and you could transform that image. It just looks "grey" at the moment. Chiaroscuro would make it really pop.

It's either a very smokey bar, or he is steaming !

Rick

Just playing with the picture editor on my smartphone...

You are right. It is too grey. It was an open air gig but they used smoke machines so I wanted to stay as close to the mood as possible.

Here's one where I adjusted in Workspace. Pulled the curves to crush most of the midtones to black. Had to use a red filter to bring back her eyes because they were in the midtones. Took this picture mid-day and used flash with a snoot as my starting image.

Before After