In terms of photography, the shade (dark to light) is the most basic, since I started with b/w photography, which is easier because it trims out some of the aspects that can get really confusing (for a beginner) -- the type of light, the quality of the light, the type of film, and so on. That way, when you start looking at adjusting for quality/type of light (ie incandescent, bright sun, cloudy day, halogen lighting, etc), you're still really only working on a single axis in terms of the final product... so you can start adding in color filters to bring out contrast/highlights based on the colors, but without the risk of also having to allow for how the film will also 'read' those filters.
I never had much artistic training, and what I did have stopped at b/w, so to this day I have difficulty determining exact shades/tints when it comes to color. I mean, I can identify color, but I can't necessarily duplicate it or reduce it to its parts.
So I guess you could say, to deal with the exact color variations (in terms of photography, or at least of light), what's on the beginner's plate is just the most basic. From there, of course, as you get into color photography, you have to start seeing as you do -- the shades, hues, and tints (beyond light-to-dark) that could also impact the image.
I had the hardest time, actually, photographing my father's wedding. It was a cloudy day (excellent for photographs!) but the majority of the guests were of Scandinavian ethnicity, which is a pale-white with blue-ish undertones but ruddy cheeks. The variation in any one person's face is pretty dramatic range, and it added all sorts of variables that I wasn't quite skilled enough to deal with: do you adjust for the pale-base, to add a filter or step down on the light so the subjects don't look deathly ill? That heightens the red in the cheeks and nose, though, but if you try to compensate for that, you're washing everyone out.
Once we got inside and the light became mid-day shaded by curtains and accented by candles on the tables, it was much easier. The softer light reduced the extremes on such pale skin, and reduced the amount of calculation I was doing in my head for whether I'd just ruined yet another shot. Whew.
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Date: 10 Dec 2010 07:03 pm (UTC)I never had much artistic training, and what I did have stopped at b/w, so to this day I have difficulty determining exact shades/tints when it comes to color. I mean, I can identify color, but I can't necessarily duplicate it or reduce it to its parts.
So I guess you could say, to deal with the exact color variations (in terms of photography, or at least of light), what's on the beginner's plate is just the most basic. From there, of course, as you get into color photography, you have to start seeing as you do -- the shades, hues, and tints (beyond light-to-dark) that could also impact the image.
I had the hardest time, actually, photographing my father's wedding. It was a cloudy day (excellent for photographs!) but the majority of the guests were of Scandinavian ethnicity, which is a pale-white with blue-ish undertones but ruddy cheeks. The variation in any one person's face is pretty dramatic range, and it added all sorts of variables that I wasn't quite skilled enough to deal with: do you adjust for the pale-base, to add a filter or step down on the light so the subjects don't look deathly ill? That heightens the red in the cheeks and nose, though, but if you try to compensate for that, you're washing everyone out.
Once we got inside and the light became mid-day shaded by curtains and accented by candles on the tables, it was much easier. The softer light reduced the extremes on such pale skin, and reduced the amount of calculation I was doing in my head for whether I'd just ruined yet another shot. Whew.