I noticed this man sitting across the road from this wall in a position that you could see how graphic his profile would be if he was in front of it and allowed me to take his image. I approached and asked and he said yes. The sun in. I wanted, and could see as I was approaching him, an image that was not silhouette but gave the feeling that it is. Along with his strong profile, I wanted his skin colour to be visible and not completely in shadow. I also wanted there to be texture in his hair rather than complete black. To accomplish this I metered his hair and placed it just above the left most bar on my meter. This would be 2.5 stops below medium grey. This placed his hair dark grey / black with detail and also placed his skin nicely also. Had I metered and shot at medium grey his tee shirt would have been blown out and and his hair and skin would have been much brighter.
Looking for interesting locations to make images, this subway in Chester, Cheshire with it's curved surfaces, looked ideal for this exercise. While I was waiting for somebody to wall past me, these police officers entered the subway and began walking towards me. This could obviously go two ways!! I pre emptied any questions they might have had for me by asking them first if they would oblige me by allowing me to make an image with them. They said yes, yep, I was surprised, and then took instruction to turn around and walk towards me, without smiling. They both did and after a couple attempts were unsuccessful, due to pedestrians using the subway, I got this image. Metering to keep the floor above black but the walls also as dark as possible, I metered the lights and placed them above medium grey. This kept the dark and dangerous feel of the subway with the jeopardy of the police officers walking towards me. Metering the general scene made for a much brighter image.
When I came across this scene in Baltimore, USA and inspired by Magnum photographer Trent Parke, I immediately saw the possibility to try and create the kind of image that he makes where the people caught in a pocket of light appear blown out and etherial compared to their surroundings. I metered the scene by placing this man just below the +3 stop latitude on my camera's meter so that he, as he was dressed mostly in a white track suit, would appear as bright as possible and, due to the reflective properties of the colour and materials used in his tracksuit he appeared much brighter than the sky at this point of the day. This gave the impression that he was an outer worldly entity in the scene.
As the sun was setting it filled the bedroom with a soft light. I wanted to capture the mood of this light as it fell on my then pregnant partner. I metered the sheets to place them on meter so that it would be the
brightest element in the frame.
I could see the long shadows cast by the setting sun in Chile. I metered to place the shadows in black and to achieve a silhouette. A woman stopped just in the right place to add human interest to the image.
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