Assignment 2 (Part 5 of 5 ) - Reducing Contrast

The situation I chose to reduce the high contrast lighting in order to make it have less contrast was the low-angle incident light situation. I felt I could achieve the process of reducing the high contrast using a couple of methods (in Photographs 13, 14 and 15) . The first involved altering the composition slightly compared to the high contrast versions of the same scenes. The main alteration in composition was to have the camera set in a position so that the Sun wasn't directly in line with the camera, or that trees were in its way. The Sun being directly in line with the camera was the case with the original photographs, consequently inducing high contrast.

Photograph 13, Assignment 2

   The second method was to experiment using off-camera fill-flash to illuminate the shadows more. I decided to use two off-camera flashes to help cover more of the shadows than a single flash would have. I moved the flashes around numerous times trying to find a set up where the shadows were filled more but not overexposed.

Photograph 14, Assignment 2

Photograph 15, Assignment 2

   The reason I didn't just simply choose an overcast day and photograph the same three scenes with a considerable reduction in contrast was because I wanted to retain the 'magical' feel (where sunlight was still apparent) to the scenes I had chosen in the original images.

   For the final of the three reduced contrast versions of the low-angle incident light photographs for the assignment (Photograph 15), I included the person (in keeping with the original version (Photograph 6)). Here, however, I decided that lighter clothes would better reduce contrast in the overall scene. By concentrating one of the fill-flashes on the person, I illuminated the brighter clothes, which were just a black silhouette in the original version.