Technical vs Creative Elements of Exposure

Exposure has both technical and creative elements; in fact, using exposure creatively is a key part of what makes good, artistic photographs. How you can use exposure creatively to achieve an artistic vision, and how you can become a master of exposure from a technical standpoint so that you achieve the best possible image quality. Whether you own a beginner camera or an advanced/professional camera, “nailing” your exposure can make a huge difference in the final result.

Creative Use Of Exposure

Okay, so, you understand what a stop of light is, and how the exposure triangle gives you different options in choosing the “right” exposure for a scene.

However, as we made sure to point out, there is no such thing as a single “perfect” exposure, since artistic vision must be taken into consideration.

The most common use of the exposure triangle is to keep your image brightness the same while achieving a different creative result. For example, aperture controls the depth of field, and if you want to achieve background blur, (shallow DOF) you would use a wide aperture and then adjust your shutter speed and/or ISO to keep the exposure brightness from changing. Oppositely, if you want everything in focus, you would use a small (narrow) aperture, and re-adjust your shutter speed and/or ISO to compensate. See the example below:

In the above image, the aperture was f/2 and f/22, so the shutter speed had to be dialed as well in order to keep the exposure consistent. Can you count how many stops this is? If you’re not sure, our article here on aperture will clear everything up!

As another example, if you are shooting action sports but your shutter speed is too slow and your subjects are blurring, you could use a faster (darker) shutter speed, while brightening your ISO and/or aperture by the same amount, to achieve the same final exposure yet with the action frozen.

Oppositely, if you intentionally want to blur something, you would have to use a small aperture, low ISO, and/or a very dark neutral density filter in order to achieve a long exposure .

Short/Fast exposure | Nikon D750, 1/60 sec, f/14, ISO 100

Before we wrap up this basic understanding of exposure, however, there is one element that has been ignored until now, which you might have noticed; we have often put the words “correct” or “right” in quotations when describing a proper exposure. This is because photography is an art form, of course, and “correct” is entirely subjective.

High-Key and Low-Key Images

Why isn’t there such a thing as one “correct” exposure for any given subject or scene? Because, sometimes, sheer creative inspiration will lead a photographer to create a much brighter or darker image than what would be considered “neutral.”

An image with more dark shadows than anything else is often called a Low-Key image, and an image with more bright highlights than anything else is often called a High-Key image. Often times this is because a scene itself was actually a dark and moody one, or a very bright one. Other times, creative use of exposure can have a profound result for even a “normal” scene.

Low-Key Exposure (Before Sunset)
1/10000 sec, f/1.4, ISO 100

High-Key Exposure (After Sunset)
1 sec, f/16, ISO 100