Back To Basics - Exposure: The Great Balancing Act - 1 of 5

Welcome to another episode of "Back to Basics" - a special section of the Towner Jones Photography Blog where we explore "essential elements of photography." Today kicks off a five-part series on exposure. Yes, five parts. There are entire books on this subject, written by folks that are a lot more talented and a lot smarter than me; however, a discussion with my father (who recently took up photography as a hobby) provided him with an "a ha" moment. It was one of those conversations when the explanation just clicked (pun intended) - so I figured there might be some other folks out there who could benefit. If not, then the quirky things that make sense to we Joneses may be something else for you to "keep up with".

First, what is exposure? The great Wikipedia defines it like this.

In photography, exposure is the total amount of light allowed to fall on the photographic medium (photographic film or image sensor) during the process of taking a photograph. Exposure is measured in lux seconds, and can be computed from exposure value (EV) and scene luminance over a specified area.

Summed up in English: Exposure is the amount of light captured by a photograph.

Before we go on, take a second to let that last sentence sink in. This entire multi-part article is going to center around balancing photographic tools and techniques to capture just the amount of light that you need to make your picture turn out the way you want it.

What I'm not going to discuss is "proper" exposure. I'm of the mindset that "proper" exposure is in the eye of the artist. A recent search of iStockPhoto for the terms "underexposed" and "overexposed" returned the following two photographs.The dark underexposure captures the mystery of the woman. The overexposure captures the brightness of the child's spirit. Is one right and the other wrong? Is there something in the middle of the road that is correct? You can decide.

In general, we will discuss the tools that the camera provides the photographer for capturing the exposure they have in their mind's eye. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the Great Balancing Act.

All cameras (with the exception of whatever obvious example I'm not including that you might think of) provide the photographer with three fundamental options for regulating the amount of light captured by the photographic medium (film or digital sensor), they are: Shutter Speed, Aperture and Sensitivity (ISO)

The Great Balancing Act comes from really understanding each of these options, the trade-offs associated with using each of them, and knowing how to juggle these settings to achieve your desired result. That is what were going to dive into over the next few days (blog entries) - here's an outline for your convenience.

Exposure: The Great Balancing Act

Part 1: Introduction

Part 2: Shutter Speed

Part 3: Aperture

Part 4: Sensitivity

Part 5: Putting It All Together

Thanks for coming along for the ride. As I've mentioned earlier, there are many many volumes written on this subject, but it is my hope that through some straight forward photographic examples, and a few simple illustrations you might achieve the "a ha" moment that takes your photography to the next level.

All the best, Rob

Comments

[Julie McLeod]

Rob, these are great basic lessons. The supporting images are perfect teaching tools. I wonder if you might make a separate category "Back to Basics" in your sidebar with the individual lessons listed beneath. These are such good explanations that I'd like to be able to send confused folks over here and it would be nice if the lessons were really easy to find...

[Rob Jones]

I'll be happy to do that Julie, if you think it would be useful.

All the best, Rob