Desert Fun

We ain't stupid. Most of the time. We work in the desert and it gets hot here, even in June. Although it is typically a dry heat, it will still mess you up. For fair haired boys such as myself, a little sun goes a long ways.

As a result, we try to work in the shade when possible. A simple thing, but one born from experience and necessity. It does present an occasional problem for me however.

 When asked to photograph a training session, I have to work with the people who are putting on the drill. I don't get to tell them work where I want them to work, I have to shoot around their preferences. The desire to work in the shade produces challenges, especially when the background is in the sun and I want to preserve some detail in it.

In the above image, the subject is very underexposed and the background is about where I want it. Fortunately, I have some editing tools which can help with these issues. Like most problems, exposure problems are best dealt with in the camera, keeping editing to a minimum. The above shot was a "throw away", meaning that I looked at it right after I shot it and didn't like what I saw. I chose to change position rather than deal with the high contrast of the scene. I usually would have deleted this right then, but decided to keep it and play with it to see if I could salvage the shot. When I am shooting emergency scenes, there are no second chances, sometimes you have to make chicken soup out of chicken manure. That is when editing tools really can come to the rescue. So to speak.

This is the same image with a partial correction. I have brought the subject up to a proper exposure, but the background is washed out. Not only is a lot of detail lost in the background, it is just plain unpleasant to look at.

 

Finally, I was able to partially restore the background to preserve some of the detail, while bringing up the subject to a near acceptable level. Although far from perfect, I could use it for some things if I had to. Like i said, this image is going into the trash right after I post this. The one I am using is composed far better and had far better light.

Every time you screw with an image, you degrade it, every correction comes with a price. The key is to take the best image you can, keeping editing to a minimum. The type of photography that I enjoy is rarely done under ideal lighting conditions. In fact, incidents usually occur under adverse lighting conditions. Editing  allows me to capture the scene, even when I screw up the shot.

Thanks for reading,
Schmoe