Eye VS. The Camera

As a photographer, you are constantly looking up, down, left, right, scanning the horizon line, and looking for photographs millimeters from your nose. That’s what we all do. One hundred photographers could walk down one hundred feet of New York City or Paris and if each one was limited to only three photographs, there’s a good possibility that none would be identical. That’s what makes photography so great. It’s an extremely personal expression of everything that you are as a human being. It is definitely intriguing.

While walking around the meat-packing district one block from one of my favorite restaurants, Pastis, I noticed several blue boards with “Post No Bills” on them. I took three frames and moved on. I then discovered a photo within a photo. If you allow the camera to expose for the background, the sunset, the foreground will be underexposed. If you expose for the foreground, the background will be blown out. Your eye and brain compensate for the foreground and the background so you are able to see the complete scene. For you to actually make that happen on a piece of film… oops… on a piece of digital material, you have to make some sort of adjustment. I always try to take the, simple, easy, straightforward way of making that happen. In this case by turning on the camera flash, reducing it by 1 and 1/3 stops I have balanced the foreground and the background. Very simple, very straightforward. It’s up to you as the photographer to make the final photograph the way you want it to be represented.