Sofia leads us in this interesting challenge – Exposure. Please visit her beautiful site for inspiration! Now, it is up to you how you work on exposure. I prefer using aperture when photographing, but for this challenge I decided only to play with changing the exposure settings while editing. In general, I find that the easiest way to get the look I want. The idea here is to see how the mood of any photo depends on its exposure.

First, some of my high key flower images. I used to be rather obsessed with that some years ago.

What is High-Key Photography?

In short, high-key images are those that have few shadows and have the subject set against a very bright background. High-key images are often set against over-exposed backdrops and the average of all the pixels in the image is very bright. High-key is the opposite of low-key images that are defined by their darker tones.

But, I am cheating…I have this opportunity in one of my cameras, and I also use NIK. If you want to try it for real, here’s an explanation and a tutorial.

Hiking last week in the deforested area, made for sunlit roots and grass. The area felt desaturated – in a positive way.

I decided for monochrome before changing the exposure in LR. The low exposure was a hit for me. I could almost feel the beautiful, whitened roots come alive in the play of light and shadow. Please click to enlarge.

For this plumbago flower, I used Lightroom to create different exposures. You can see that in the underexposed image the light is softly shining through the petals, something you cannot see that well in the overexposed picture. Harmony.

NIK can make striking high key images, while the low key one with LR touched shadows gives another feel.

Different umbrellas

This fly agaric stood alone in the shadow, neutral exposure – with an underexposed image, you can make the ”hat” glow when editing in for example LR. More magic!

Landscapes – well, I don’t know what you prefer, but I prefer the ethereal look of the overexposed image.

Last, but not least, if you are a follower, you already know that I love double exposures. You can make them in Photoshop, but I am lucky enough to be able to make them in my camera. This image I have featured several times, but it is the one I think have turned out the best. So far. In the header – roses.

To sum it up, for me it’s aperture photography, but I often find that playing with exposure while editing gives me a wider range of opportunities. Good for me – I am not always fast in deciding how I want the final image to look. I think that underexposed images make for interesting edits and overexposed images can lift the photo to something ethereal.

Last week we had John’s creative challenge to lighten up our windows to the world. The variety of replies showed how every challenge can be interpreted in a different, personal way and that applies to this week’s challenge as well. We” invite you to play, think or just do your own thing with exposure, either on camera or while editing. and then show us the result.”

Please link to Sofia’s original post and tag with Lens-Artists so we can all find you. Next challenge it is Anne hosting, be sure to visit her beautiful site for inspiration.

As always, stay calm and kind.