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drama

Night photo, abandoned airport terminal

Light Painting 101: Less is more; Keeping the shadows

Keep the shadows and create more mystery. Sometimes in light painting, less is more. I’ll show examples of creating drama by illuminating less of the subject. What is light painting? Light painting is a term that is often used loosely to describe any addition of light to a night photograph.

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Light painting a vintage truck at night. Nelson Ghost Town, NV.

Light painting magic: Creating night photo truck drama

You don’t need to light paint everything to create drama with vehicles. Sometimes, less really is more. Here, we create jaw-dropping rim lighting while keeping most of the truck in mysterious shadow with this night photo. What is light painting? The term is often used loosely to describe any addition

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To overexpose or underexpose? That is the question

I recently had a friend ask me what the difference is between underexposing and image and overexposing. Why do you do it and when? Is there a rule to follow when exposing your images? Underexposed Let’s start with the basics. What is underexposure? By definition, an underexposed image is where

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Portrait Tips: Lighting the Hulk

It doesn’t really take too much imagination when you have a muscleman in front of your lens to picture him as a green mass with purple highlights. It’s either because I’m a male, or because I have a three-year-old son. Anyhow, this just had to happen when I was making

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Portrait Tips: Cut the Rim Light

Making portraits with a rim light is awesome. It gives depth and punch and when you do it really well you’ll notice that it looks more natural. Take a close look the next time you’re having a conversation anyplace with windows and you’ll probably see that the person you’re talking

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Want Drama? Shoot With The Light

I often spend a lot of time at a wedding wrestling with light. Different sources, color temperatures, intensities are all over. Often, I find I like to shoot into the light to create a dreamy, open, bright feeling to my images because those are all qualities that typically go along

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