Meetings - Kings Park Photo Club

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July 16th Monthly Meeting

The meeting began with Art presenting this month's Before Meeting Photo Collection. Each contributing member commented on their submitted photos.

Next, George showed a youTube video by Peter Evans entitled “Contre-Jour Fine Art Photography – Understanding the Art of Beautiful Backlighting” Watch Video Peter Evans is a French photographer and photography tutor with thousands of followers on Youtube.

In the video, Peter Evans explained that Contre Jour photography is sometimes confused with shooting into the sun. It’s not.

Contre Jour is defined as “shooting against the light”. It refers to a photo that is backlit, no matter the source of the light. The point of interest is capable of being hit by the light.

There are three areas of challenge in Contre Jour photography:

A. Lighting

B. Exposure and

C. Post-Processing

A. Lighting

Peter Evans explained that shooting straight into the sun can produce flare, an optical phenomenon that happens when a bright light source strikes the front of your camera lens, causing light to scatter and bounce around internally, giving you hazy, washed-out colors or distinct geometric shapes, halos, and "ghosts" across your image.

Lens Flare

How Lens Flare Happens

Ghosting

In order to prevent flare or ghosting effects he recommends 4 different solutions;

use a lens hood

use something in your field of view to block the sun. (This can be the subject.)

find some shade and shoot from there, or

hold your hand or a card above the lens to shade it from the sun

B. Exposure

In his normal photography Evans exposes for the highlights, “to the right” (ETTR), and lets the shadows take care of themselves.

But that’s not possible in Contre Jour because the blazing background and backlit subject make it impossible to expose for both.

Pushing the histogram to the right overexposes the light source, destroying the highlight details.

Every time Peter takes a shot he asks: is the shot overexposed? where is it overexposed? and do I care if it’s overexposed? i.e. in a cloud you won’t care.

Peter Evans doesn’t use exposure compensation in this type of photography because once it’s set, it stays set until you reset it. Instead he recommends shooting on Aperture Priority while bracketing the shot two stops under and two stops over, to be safe. (Note: Aperture priority mode doesn't work on smartphones, which lack physical, adjustable iris blades needed to change f-stops on demand).

Normally,Peter Evans doesn’t judge his photo’s exposure by the image in his camera, he goes to the camera’s histogram. But you can’t do this for Contre Jour. In order to get the proper exposure in this case, he uses a Hoodman loop or a reflector or a fill flash to balance the light in front of the subject with the light coming in from the back.

C. Post-Processing

He recommends that you shoot RAW. Within RAW, shoot auto and leave it up to the camera to take care of white balance.

Handle the fine tuning in post processing as did famous photographers such as Ansel Adams.

After the video, George answered questions about camera settings and tips for shooting Contre Jour.

He displayed his selection of tools for setting up Contre Jour portraits, including fill flashes and reflectors.

Finally, those attending lined up to take some photographs on their own, using the technique.

Thank you George! for a very informative session.

George sets up the backdrop for members' Contre Jour hands-on shots

Each member photographed the subject "against the light"

Art's Portrait - Contre Jour

Club Meetings

where
the Smithtown Library - Kings Park Building

1 Church Street

Kings Park, NY 11754
631.360.2480
https://www.smithlib.org/

See map: Google Maps

when
We meet on the third Thursday of the month beginning at 7:00pm, in the downstairs meeting room.
MeetingsMap

PLEASE NOTE
If the Smithtown Library - Kings Park Building isn't available,
meetings may occasionally be held at the Commack Branch
of the Smithtown library-
Commack Building

3 Indian Head Road
Commack, NY 11725

Content
The meeting begins with a montage of members' photos with comments from each photographer, then short “business” items, such as group photo shoots or special projects.

Presentations are the focus, usually made by club members. For example, George and Michael recently did a presentation on chiaroscope photography.

Guests are always welcome.

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