Overexposure
Experimenting with overexposure to create in camera pencil sketches.
But first, the view up my driveway
At this time of year, taking out the recycling is never a chore. Any excuse to go down the driveway, even before my cup of joe, is most welcome. Warm, low angled light intertwined with deep shadow. Getting low to the ground, I can smell the damp earth from an overnight shower. The air is cool, with little sense of how hot the day will become. This was taken before the heat dome of the last few days had arrived and even the mosquitos and deer flies hadn’t arrived on the scene.
That’s my house up there in the near distance. An Ontario farmhouse vernacular built in 1899 and our home for the past 38 years and counting, as of this very day. That’s right! We took possession of our little slice of paradise, our heaven on earth, on Summer Solstice, June 21, 1986, a red letter day in the life of my wife and I. The best decision we ever made.
Experimenting with overexposure
Recently I’ve been experimenting with my overexposures to see what happens. The landscape photo below was made at a small unnamed pond at the side of highway 45 near Beagle Club Road on my weekly shopping trip to Cobourg.
Using the live preview of my Fuji XT-3 with film simulation set to Across + R, I was able to previsualize what the scene would look like. I was determined to do this in camera so I shut off RAW recording completely and shot in jpeg only. Instead of balancing the tones as I normally would, I pushed the highlights way past the right side of my histogram. The brightest trunks immediately turned pure white, the leaves look like they were recorded with infra-red film and the pond appeared milky white. The picture is anything but a normal exposure.
I think the photo has a dream-like quality to it, and is much like what I had in mind when I stopped to make the image and give this idea a chance. The best part was that simply by overexposing, I was able to see this effect in camera.
The only real change I had to make was in my brain. I allowed my perception of what I was looking at in my viewfinder to be registered as correct and not wrong. Yes, it is overexposed, but is that necessarily wrong? No. I followed through with my intention. I got the image I was looking for and wanted.
This scene by the way, is a stitched panorama. Shot with my standard 35mm lens held vertically, I shot a series of 5 images handheld and stitched them together in Camera Raw. The result is wide angle without distortion, and a huge, very printable file.
Here is the middle image as it came out of Camera Raw.
Taking a few steps along the road towards where I had parked the car, I pushed the exposure even higher. Digital costs nothing and experimentation is free. The worst that could happen is that nothing would turn out. No loss really. A few minutes of my time and by experimenting, I might learn something. It turned out better than I was expecting.
The scene in the viewfinder looked just like this. Well, maybe a little less contrasty as that black point needed to be slid over to the right in post to get the contrast I was looking for. I also ran the above image through Topaz Studio 2 to soften the lines and to place the image on a textured surface. The image below is my final image.
Can’t see a difference? Click on the images to see them in enlarged.
Anyways, that’s it for the moment. See you soon and thanks for dropping by.
Leave a comment if you’d like. I’m curious how you explode the myths of under and overexposure?
Cheers, John
I delete all overexposed photos without thinking once. This is a great idea, John.
Have camera, will experiment. Cheers from Brazil.
If I were going to time travel back to 1899 when your house was built, I would want to go through this process of overexposure. It would be a transformation in seeing. Congrats on the anniversary of your home!