A Langur Conference & Why I Love Shooting into the Sun
As wildlife photographers we grow up in the craft learning to shoot with the sun behind our backs. While this usually yields evenly lit images, the results are often predictable. Often times we come back with images so devoid of shadow, that they lack depth. And so, it's never a bad idea to break the mould and try something different to create variety in your portfolio. In fact, I love shooting backlit and sidelit subjects so much that I've written about this earlier as well; and I don't believe this will be the last time I'll write about this either.
Something I've learnt from Andy Biggs is that wildlife is quite popular in cultures worldwide. So we don't need a detailed shot of an elephant to know what it is. An overall shape is more than enough to give us the idea. In a similar manner, today's image should clearly tell you that these are monkeys. However wildlife photography isn't as much about documenting subjects as much as it's about telling a story for the moment. In this case, creating the feel of a conference and highlighting the drama of light at the moment was what I was going for. In hindsight there are a few things I'd have done differently for this image, but as far as shooting into the sun is concerned I think that's something I got dead right!
By the way, a common misconception about making such images is that you need to underexpose heavily in the field. While that may not be untrue if you want to get as close as possible to the final image in camera, I consider that a pointless exercise. This is for the simple reason that your image will still not have rich blacks and highlights until the time you pull down shadows and blacks individually and make fine adjustments to your histogram. This can only happen in post processing. So I prefer to expose to the right (ETTR) without clipping my highlights. That allows me to capture as much light as possible to make a variety of images as I may please. Remember, you can always make light areas dark without affecting image quality. The converse isn't true though. Adding light in post processing always comes with noise! I hope that tip comes in handy for you. Until next time, later alligator!