Deep in the Garden

2010 - Day 169. June 18, 2010.

 

Daily Shoot - Your viewer’s eye will tend to follow a line. Make a photo that uses leading lines to direct the viewer to your subject.

 

I didn't know how to expose for this shot. The hostas are in almost total shade in my garden, but there was a stream of light casting a wonderful glow through the upper part of the leaf. I switched to spot metering, tried to expose for the snail and used my flash. The end result was that nothing was exposed properly. Even after a couple of tries I couldn't get it right, and by then I'd lost my subject; it's surprising how fast snails can be ;-). In post processing I decided to go with the underexposed subject. I bumped up the blacks, as well as the highlights, creating contrast. I added a bit of definition with my fractalius plugin to counteract the slight shadow from the flash and give a clean silhouette. I still don't know how to expose for this situation, but I wanted to rescue the shot because I do like the composition, lines and mood.

Done