Old questions revisited

I write a monthly column for a terrific website called www.prophotoresource.com. I am also lucky enough to have my own forum on that site called "Ask Steve." I get asked a wide variety of questions so it's always good fun to read what's on people's minds as they navigate their way through the fascinating world of photography. Many wonderful questions and discussions are now buried in the archives--they are still available on PPR, but you have to go digging. I thought it was time to bring them back to the surface and breathe some life into them. Hopefully they can spur on some new discussions and help some other photographers.

I wrote "Bring Back Your Background By Taking Your Studio Strobes Outside" several years ago for prophotoresource and covered the topic in some detail in my Outdoor Lghting book. The two images of Brooke that start this post show the before and after efffect of the technique discussed. The basic technique was to shoot at a faster shutter speed at a midrange f-stop to show the detail in the background and to use a powerful stobe to illuminate Brooke--jut the opposite of "dragging the shutter" to show detail in a dark background. This was the question and my response:

Stephen, when you changed the shutter speed to 1/250s didn't the camera indicate a 2 stop overexposure? This probably seems like a silly and very elementary question. But I ask because I think it is important to mention what the camera meter will display. Some photographers may not understand that many times the camera reading will not indicate a normal exposure but that the set exposure may in fact be the correct exposure to achieve the look you want.

Response: First off, there is no such thing as a "silly question." The only bad questions are the ones that you don't ask. Now, you pose an interesting set of questions. My camera is always set to manual exposure so I tell IT what to do rather than IT trying to dictate to me what it wants to do. I would have gotten that awful first shot if I relied on the camera's indicator. However, if I had checked the the camera's indicator, it probably would have said that I was UNDERexposing the image by two or more stops--which is essentially what I did--except that I used the strobe to bring the light on Brooke up to meet the the new exposure. Remember that your meter--in the camera or hand held--is both an amazing machine and a stupid tool: It understands one thing only: midtone gray. It's amazing because it will translate ANY metered scene into 18% gray. It's stupid because it doesn't know what to do with that information. That's where we come in. We get to take that critical information and tweak it to fit our needs. The image of Brooke actually had two correct exposures: one for her and one for the backdrop. The two were not compatible--until we introduced the strobe. (The originally questioner did mean to say underexpose but mistyped it)

My approach seveal years later is very similar. I've written several articles for PPR about metering for the background and using strobes to balance the foreground with the background. I also address this in detail once again in my upcoming "Back to Basics" book. Please feel free to visit me at either PPR or join my "Ask Steve Photography Related Questions" on Facebook!