Click to Listen to PodCast – Why Do Photographers Fear The Shadows?

Why Do Today’s Photographers Fear The Shadows?

Granted know one wants a BLACK SHADOW on one side of a person or object within every single Vertical Perspective Image but I think we’ve gone a bit over board now!

I believe to a certain degree, myself included, we have slowly become Shadow Phobic.

I recall like it was yesterday my first “decent” camera purchased while still in high school. It was a Minolta SRT-102 fully manual, metal frame, 35mm that could actually flash sync at a whooping 1/60^th of a second! For 1974 technology, it was no slouch and allowed me to photograph solely in Black & White using many different types film while developing all my own work.

The wonderfully strange thing that occurred during this period was my ability to “ see” in black and white! I looked at images as groups of geometric shapes of light & dark and found myself using shadow to give skeleton to a frame and light to provide it with flesh.

This mind set has carried into my current work but more and more I find myself “Fearing the Shadows” becoming a Shadowphobe of sorts, instead of embracing and using them as I had in the past.

Today, we as professional photographers, are using higher & higher ISO capable camera bodies, Reflectors, Homemade Modifiers, Gary Fong’s, Stophen’s, complete arsenals of flashguns from advanced Studio Strobes to High Powered Portable Flashlights with full wireless (i)/eTTL /II functionality.

Are we making better pictures?

If that was not enough now we are seeing a race for FULL HDR in camera processing in both DSLR and Video Cameras!

… just where will it end?

Personally I think HDR has its place and firing off 4, 8, 16 frames or more to capture a huge dynamic range can be helpful in certain situations.  But …

Do we really need to see every single pixel in every single shadow? Come on … Do We?

I relate this Shadow Phobia to the many months of drawing & painting nudes in art school. Strangely, once the subjects were completely nude and there was no longer any mystery or anything left for the imagination the illustrative process quickly became mundane & unrewarding!

Are our images slowly becoming … mundane?

It’s my belief an image is like a book, your mind should have the ability to play, create and be free to interrupt each positive & negative space in the frame! Opening up every shadow lessens the ability of the photographer to hide meaning, thoughts, ideas and concepts within the image and to the viewer, it forces the frame to become as unrewarding as the nude models became to illustrate.

On a personal note: 2010, I am going to make it a point to get back to the basics, so to speak, and possibility add another grouping to my Gallery Work with this topic as a focal point.

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I want to hear from you!

• Do you Fear The Shadows? … Come on be truthful!
• What are your thoughts on HDR?
• How are you addressing today’s advancing technologies?

Thank you so very much for taking the time to visit and read my many rants!

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