Hello! Hello! Hello!


Here we are! We made it to the second issue of the newsletter. I honestly didn't expect that much engagement, but those analytics numbers look amazing!

Remember two weeks ago I took you on that bumpy ride, right? As an apology for that, and for making your brain hurt with that golden spiral grid (which I personally find frustrating to use too), I will be speaking about a tool that will help you feel empowered, that will unleash some of that artistic potential of yours and get you in a ludic mood.

And now you must be like “Hey Adrian! Can you please slow down? I'm still trying to figure out how to use those grids you were talking about two weeks ago.”  I am not gonna lie - same! Do I always frame my photos correctly? Hell no! But guess what, I will be getting an A for effort, and you are getting one too! 

And one of those cute golden star stickers! You're welcome. 

⭐️

Without further ado, let us speak about the rules of exposure in photography and how you can break the flip out of them!


Expo-what? 


Ex 👏 po 👏 sure 👏, henny! The exposure refers to the amount of light which reaches your camera sensor and it's a crucial part of how bright or dark will pictures will appear. 

When adjusting exposure, there are two camera settings that you must have in mind: the shutter speed (which should look like 1/number) and the aperture (which should look like f.number)The ISO which affects how sensitive your sensor is to light is equally as important to understand. The best advice is to leave it to a minimum  (which is usually 100) for the moment only if you have a device that supports ISO change. 

We are gonna speak about taking back control of your phone camera in a second, how exciting! If you are a phone user, you can tap on the screen and toggle the dial back and forth! See the image below.

"Adrian, but you didn't apply the rule of thirds" Give me a break, alright?

As you can see in the image, the sun icon is used to adjust the exposure. Also, try tapping on different areas of the image, your phone will automatically find 'the best' settings for the specific scenario. Aka, your phone is going to be in charge of how your picture will look like. 

But do not worry because you can change that by using the sun icon.

Wow! Look at how utterly underexposed this image is! Let's speak about that!


Under exposing / over exposing


Okay! To cover the basics, an underexposed image is is the sort of photo that is considered overall too dark and the same goes for the overexposed photos, being the opposite. 

When you correctly expose an image, such as the one I used as an example, it will feel just bright or dark enough so that both the shadows and highlights are as they feel the most natural and comfortable to look at. 

Aka you don't lose details in the shadows or on the other hand end up with a blown-out photo.

Adrian Leca Photographer | Blog 3

Why underexpose?


I'm a big fan of underexposing your photos, so let's speak about that for a bit! (with bullet points, because we are organised)

  • A slight underexposure can lead to a deepening of the colour saturation and this may be a nice effect. Richer colours, minimum effort? Count me in! 
  • Digital sensors are great in many ways, but when it comes to catching too much light, they are really bad. Just a slight overexposure can cause a loss of information. That the exposure isn’t nailed 100% is not something that we should worry about. Since we can recover the exposure in Lightroom, a slight over or underexposure is not the end of the world. (you can use Snapseed if you're an iPhone user. Sponsored? I wish)

Also, by working with great areas of the photograph that lack light, you can get the viewer to direct their attention to the small bright patches. So shine some light only on something of high importance in the frame! Look at me throwing pro tips at you!


Have fun with it!


You can achieve great results using the tools we just spoke about, so why not utilise the most convenient resource you have when it comes to photography and manipulate it in the most creative ways?

Now go out there and shoot! I believe in you!

Adrian Leca Photographer | Exposing Your Photos | Rok Juriciuc