Back in the days when photographers didn't have the aid (luxury) of LCD's, we were (for lack of better term) forced to study our frame and plan for our exposure carefully before tripping the shutter. Those rolls of transparencies didn't come cheap.
So as homage to the fore bearers of this craft which I have grown to love so much, Please allow me to share with you a basic and simple technique which I learned from them on how to isolate light on your subject and add drama to the image, without the aid of your lcd.
In the photo above, much of the frame is covered in black and isolated lights gave only hints of the man's profile. It's actually so cliche to shoot a blind man like this, but hey, you gotta love cliches sometimes!
To expose for this, I first turned our subject so that he will be facing towards the light, then metered for the man's face with my camera pointing at him face to face (well, face to camera to be more exact). I filled my frame with just his face so that the reading I will get will be just from the light falling on his face. This gave me a reading which yielded a setting that underexposed his surrounding background.
The photo shown is with the exposure setting with him turned towards the camera. Notice that the background is underexposed since I metered for the light on his face only. I locked on to that setting then reframed my shot showing the right side of his face. As a result, I am now capturing the shadows on his face. I pulled back some more to fill my frame with more shadows and reveal the black background. The result is an image filled with dark shades and just hints of light to direct you to this blind man's profile. Here's the final image again.
Next time when you're in a shoot and find yourself with a bit more time, try resisting the temptation to look at your lcd to check and correct your shots and give this simple technique a try. It's worth learning it.
Hope this helps, happy shooting!
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