Ok, since I forgot to do a “Weekly Photography Tip” last week (and maybe even the week before that) I’ll try to make up for it this week…

Todays digital cameras are for the most part quite good, and the light meters in these cameras tend to be extremely accurate, but there are times that even the very best light meters (which determines the exposure of the image) will be fooled by the scene you are trying to photograph. Two such scenarios are the beach, and scenes with a lot of snow in them..

Snow- Winter scenes are some of my favorites, both to photograph and to view. I love the minimalizing effect that a blanket of snow has on a scene, and how different a landscape looks when covered in snow, as it has the tendency to simplify everything, allowing you to see shapes and forms not typically seen.

Have you ever gotten photos back (old-school I know - thinking back to my film days here people), or viewed images you took where the the snow had a kind-of washed out grayish tone? Do you remember thinking, “huh.. not as beautiful as it looked when I took the picture..”?

Your camera’s meter basically saw so much white, and not wanting to overexpose the image, it defaulted to underexposing the image. To counter this, simply force the camera to “overexpose” the photo by manually adjusting the exposure compensation to between +1 and +2 stops. This will add more light and expose the image correctly. Play around a bit with the exposure, but usually 1 to 2 stops should do it.

The Beach- Ever notice how underexposed so many beach scenes are? Dark shadows, and just dark in general, especially when the image is a portrait at the beach. Many times its hard to even see the person’s face in the photograph.

Again, the light meter in your camera is being fooled- the bright sun reflecting off the water, shimmering wet sand, etc.. Once again, your camera is underexposing the image, so do the same at the beach as you would when photographing winter scenes. Overexpose the image by 1 or 2 stops and force the camera to allow more light in for a properly exposed image. As with winter images, experiment a bit until you get the results you want..

Portraits- When photographing someone at the beach or in a winter scene, USE YOUR FLASH. Most people don’t really think much about it, but pictures of people at the beach are often taken when the sun is high in the sky- the worst time of the day for a portrait. The sun beating down from directly above causes harsh shadows on the subjects face, not very flattering.. Fix this by using fill flash and force your camera’s flash to fire. This will fill in those nasty harsh shadows and your subject should be properly exposed.

As with most things art related, photography is completely subjective. These tips are simply given as a starting point for those of you who wish to take better photos, and aren’t afraid to experiment a little…

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