ChessPlayer

I shot this candid of a chess player in a New York City park. I used aperture priority on my

Nikon D80 and am concerned that my exposure is wrong. Perhaps I am spot metering off of

the wrong part of the frame? Sidelight is tough! Please comment.

Well, with dark hair, medium dark skin, and a white beard and cigarette, you caught what was there. Much more exposure and the beard would wash out. The only bad part is the eyes, which look unsalvageable. Fill in flash might have helped.

Excellent exposure for this subject.

Nice shot. I agree with Ray about the fill flash. Maybe a reflector would've addded enough light to the model's face too.

Perhaps a tiny bit of fill flash would have given you more detail on the left side, but I think the light you have here is more dramatic. It depends on what you are going for. If you want a police mug shot with all possible detail, then use the flash. Otherwise accept the limitations of the time and place. In this case I think it quite fine the way it is.

Thanks for the input. I generally stay away from fill flash as I am a big fan of natural light. The more I look at this the more I feel my gripe is with the color and not the exposure necessarily.

wrong shot. here's the tweaked version of the first one!

 

My 2 cents worth. The issue is the absence of light in the right eye. By brightening the overall image and finding the eye, you can select the eye only for further lightening. Once done, re-adjust the brightness to yield the remaing features at approximately where they were before, only now the right eye shows some detail.

Both interpretations are great. Thanks everyone. Wow. If this guy new how much we were analyzing his face, he'd think twice about letting some guy take his picture in the park!