Strongly directional light can be a blessing or a curse and all too often it’s the latter. It makes proper exposure a challenge because it’s very easy to blow the highlights and/or have shadows so deep that there’s no detail there at all. But when things work out the effect can be appealing and dramatic.
1/2000, f/6.3, ISO 640, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc
This old cedar stump is a favorite perch of Red-tailed Hawks at the base of Utah’s Stansbury Mountains in the west desert. It’s usually a frustrating situation for me though because I can’t access a proper position to get the sun behind me and for most of the day the sidelight is just too harsh for an exposure that works well. But on this one morning the hawk was on the stump just as the sun came over the Oquirrh Mountains to the east so the light was soft and warm enough to make an exposure that I liked and I thought the shaded upper background worked well with the light on the bird’s head.
Ron
Ron
I agree with your reasoning. I think every thing worked well and gave you a very startling and dramatic portrait.
I so look forward to your posts. Thank you.
Absolutely Incredible! Funny, I just painted a RT today. Nowhere near this striking though, my goodness.