How Contrasty Are You?
Today's rainy photo walk experiment and a question for photographers
Shaping tones and shades is a skillful application that can transform an ordinary photograph. It can evoke emotions and emphasize details. As photographers explore the dance of light and darkness, we can harness the power of contrast to achieve these results.
Yet, there are subtle style preferences embedded in how we choose our film stock, in-body camera settings, or what we do in post to adjust contrast. Does contrast come down to style for you? Or do you believe contrast depends wholly on the subject matter?
I have only questions, since this is a topic I am only now exploring. I’ll leave you with these images from my photo walk this morning. With these, I specifically set out to explore this topic and would like to ask, how contrasty are you…and why?
Ha, Ha, that is the eternal question...... Some print hard - high contrast - and some soft. Bernard Plossu said that he wanted neither black nor white in his photographs, only shades of grey. If you look at the work of Bill Brandt, who many consider one of the greats, including myself... you will learn that his early work was soft, lots of greys. The older he got, the harder/more contrasty he printed. He changed, his perspective changed, his photographs changed. So how contrasty am I, well that depends..... ;0)
Contrast really is an art form all to itself! I love the look of subtle highlights and mysterious, dark shadows. I find a little bit goes a long way, and really depends on the image.