Photographically Challenged: Opposite Problem, Same Solution

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In case you missed it: Check out my entry in Nicole B's Scavenger Hunt!

In his recent post J is for Judgement, David McMahon -- one of my favorite photobloggers -- recounted one of those "Decisions, decisions" moments we all face. The decision was whether to push on to a bi-annual air show on Friday evening in uncertain weather and fading light or wait until Saturday morning when the time crunch would be gone and he'd have plenty of daylight to work with. You can go read the post (and you should!) to hear all of the factors that went into his decision to press on and go Friday evening, but for our purposes here those aren't important. What is important is that David elected to go on Friday despite the rapidly deteriorating light, but knew he'd have to adjust his technique to suit the circumstances. He opted for tight shots of parts of aircraft rather than wide, sweeping shots that could encompass entire planes. There are a lot of good reasons for doing this, but in his case, it was necessary because the planes were poorly lit and blending into the background.

As I was reading, I realized that this past Saturday I had encountered the exact opposite problem, but employed the exact same solution. Only in my case there was no choice of waiting for better light. The classic car show I was planning to shoot only lasted from noon to 4:00 pm, which -- photographically -- is typically one of the worst times of day for outdoor work. the problem at David's air show was not enough light. The problem at my car show was too much of it, and in entirely the wrong place. But my options were more limited. The only choice I could make was whether to wait until the later part of the afternoon when I could at least hope for a tiny bit of shadow and contrast. But had this taken place in mid-summer, the schedule they kept wouldn't have even given me that much.

"1957 Chevy Bel Air Coupe - Wide view"
Raleigh, NC - March 2009 (Click to embiggen)

This first shot is what I could expect if I went with wide shots of the cars as a whole. There are two problems here. First is that the sun is still very high in the sky and almost pure, blindingly white light. It's harsh, and glaring and robs the features of the car of any kind of depth owing to lack of shadow (which not even a polarizing filter can create for you). The second problem is one that David would have encountered with his airplanes too. Cars, planes and the like are relatively long and low in aspect, so by the time you've gotten the whole subject into the frame you've (a) lost the detail in the subject and (b) included a lot of background that you may or may not really want. And as you can see, the background for my car show wasn't the most aesthetically appealing. Even shooting at a diagonal to keep as much of the frame as possible on the target I still would have a good deal of background clutter to contend with. If I were the owner of this car (yeah,right) and I were trying to sell it (yeah, even more right!), this might be okay. The potential buyer wants to see the car, the whole car, and probably doesn't care about nothin' but the car... regardless of what's behind it. But it's not my car and I'm not shooting for a classified ad. I'm trying to make art here people, and this isn't cutting it.

"1957 Chevy Bel Air Coupe - Rear Quarter Panel"
Raleigh, NC - March 2009 (Click to embiggen)

So rather than try to fight with the sun and the background, I played the hand that was dealt and got close-up detail shots instead. (This is the "same solution" part of the story.) This way I had a least a little control over the lighting and could minimize or even eliminate the industrial decay of the backdrop.

"1957 Chevy Bel Air Coupe - Headlight Detail"
Raleigh, NC - March 2009 (Click to embiggen)

There's also the element of the dramatic in a tight shot from a slightly unusual angle. Taken at a wide view, my 1957 Bel Air looks straight out of Grease or American Grafitti. Shot from a low angle with only one eye visible, she looks more straight out of Christine (even though Chris was -- as I recall -- a Chrysler).

So whether I achieved what I was after or not I suppose depends largely on the viewer. But I was happy with it.

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