As you know I am currently enjoying participating in the A Year With My Camera online course. Last month the theme for one of the specialty groups I am a member of was “Contre-jour” . This was explained as “photographing into the light”. I had no idea that was what it was called.
Wikipedia provided this explanation:
Contre-jour produces backlighting of the subject. This effect usually hides details, causes a stronger contrast between light and dark, creates silhouettes and emphasizes lines and shapes. The sun, or other light source, is often seen as either a bright spot or as a strong glare behind the subject
Fortuitously, there was an in person photo class run by Victoria Photography Group in May to practice sunset shots, which afforded me a perfect opportunity to practice this.
Like many beginners I had studiously avoided this, and so the following results are predictably flawed, but the learning was valuable. I am posting un edited images to demonstrate the learning.
I encountered a very common challenge- how to avoid blown out skies. The tutor for this lesson, suggested exposure bracketing, and also to think about how I may be able to frame the shot to minimize the sky.
Exposure bracketing involves setting the camera to take 3 images simultaneously at 3 different exposure settings. In this case I set the camera settings to be -1, 0, and +1. Then, in editing software, the 3 images are merged to produce a more balanced image.
Here are the 3 exposure bracketed shots:
Exposure setting -1
Exposure setting at 0
Exposure setting at +1
Here is the blended image using the Affinity 2 photo editing software:
So, not great, the sky is not how I would like it, but the foreground is better. I learned a lot and need to continue to get to grips with with Affinity 2 to improve the sky.
In editing the final image I followed these instructions on You Tube
The Contre jour style of photography produces some lovely silhouettes:
At least I am happy with this one!
Another learning I am taking away from this exercise in the AYWMC group is how well black and white photography utilises this technique.
A useful article regarding this technique can be found here;
In a future post I might l write a bit more about the Affinity 2 software- once I have got my head round it a lot better!
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