So before we actually got into the editing process and actually editing photos, I want to talk about editing and emotion and how closely related they are, I think this is really important to talk about because when it comes to editing, you know, we can have so much power over a photo and we can really change that photo story or the emotions that that photo convey. So starting off on the, on the top of that, I want to talk about exposure and emotion when I say exposure, I mean basically how bright or how dark the images and this will have a huge impact on the overall mood of your photo. So starting off, let's talk about dark photos and some of the emotions that a dark photo might convey. So, I personally love dark style photos, if you guys have seen my instagram, you've seen my photos, they're kind of dark, kind of moody, that's the style that I really like. Um and that's just simply for yes, an aesthetic standpoint. I think they look really cool, but also um the emotions that they conv...

ey are really interesting to me and some of those emotions that you might see, you might think about when you see a a dark photo might be things like mystery. You know, dark photos, they sometimes they hide information, they conceal information, so they're kind of mysterious or their ominous in some way, maybe a little bit scary in some situations. Um they can be very powerful. So you might use the word powerful to describe a dark photo, you might also use the word refined. So darker photos can have kind of a sophisticated or refined look to them. Um so you can explain it in that way, you can also use the word intense. You know if you have a lot of dark areas that can be really intense or dark photos can also be very sad and very somber. You know, very kind of calm and relaxed. So um we're gonna talk about how those different emotions change when we get into things like contrast, but contrast aside right now we're gonna get into contrast in a little bit. But just in terms of the photo being overall, dark, overall light. Those are some of the emotions that you can expect from a darker photo. Now, bright photos on the other hand are very different and almost opposite from the emotions that you might express from a dark photo. So you might experience things like optimism. So bright photos are very optimistic, they're very upbeat. Um they make you feel happy, they make you feel good. Um Harry might be one of those uh adjectives that you might use to explain a bright photo. Um airy means, you know, kind of kind of bright, kind of open, optimistic uh kind of ethereal in some ways, ethereal is a good word. Another another word you might use is gentle, bright photos can be very gentle, very calming, very relaxed. Bright photos can also be sad or somber just like the dark photos can bright photos can as well and I think the difference there comes when it gets to things like contrast. So contrast is what I want to talk about now. So contrast is essentially the differences between the bright areas in your photo and the dark areas in your photo, A dark photo can have both high or low contrast. Same with a a light photo that can have both high or low contrast. And that contrast is going to greatly affect the mood of your image. So if you have a dark image with very low contrast, which means you know, there's not a lot of differences between the dark and the light areas. Maybe the images more gray. Um that might be kind of a sadder or a somber or kind of a relaxed mood or emotion that that photo gives off. But on the flip side of that, if you have a dark photo that has very high contrast and you might think of of things like refined or polished or um intense, you know, high contrast can be an intense look. So some of the words that you might use to describe a high contrast look, you know, regardless of whether the image is bright or the image is dark, some of the adjectives you could use to describe high contrast images are dramatic, intense, loud, vibrant, punchy sharp. In short, high contrast images look good, they stand out, they pop their bold um and they can be very powerful images and I think that's one of the reasons why high contrast images are so popular when done correctly using contrast. Um can really, really change the mood of your photo and it can provide, you know, a very profound impact on the viewer. With that said, I do want to say that contrast is one of the most abused functions in the editing process. When it when it comes to beginner editors, we're gonna talk about contrast later on in this course, but using too much contrast as one of the biggest mistakes I see with young editors. So when it comes to images with low contrast, you know, they might not stand out as much low contrast images are usually a little bit more relaxed. They're not so bold. They don't stand out but don't dismiss them because when used properly low contrast images can it listed very, very strong emotions within the viewer of your photo. And I think some of my favorite photographers of all time have really taken on this low contrast approach. And the reason for that is because, you know, good light doesn't need high contrast to stand out. You can capture beautiful light and not have it be high contrast light. And some of the words you might use to describe a low contrast image might be things like subdued, gentle, soft, quiet muted. There's a lot of different emotions that can come from low contrast images just like there's a lot of emotions that can come from high contrast images. And that's why I wanted to add this section in the courses to get you to start thinking about how contrast and light in general can really affect the mood and the emotion of your photo. So now that we've talked about light and how that can really affect the mood of the emotion of your photo. Now, I want to talk about color in this video. We haven't talked about color at all. We only talked about bright images, dark images, high contrast and low contrast. Right? But none of that has to do with color. So now in this next video, I want to dive into color and talk about how color can have a profound impact on the mood of the emotion of your photos as well.

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Sean Dalton

Lifestyle & travel photographer with 65k+ Instagram followers

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topics covered in this class

Beginner Post-Processing iPhone Adobe Lightroom Fundamentals Photo Editing Digital Photography

2,000+ classes ranging from fundamentals to advanced techniques.

Exposure and Emotion

Exposure and Emotion

Lesson Info

7. Exposure and Emotion

Lessons

Class Overview

The Power of Mobile Editing

The Digital Anatomy of a Photograph

Class Project

Raw vs. Jpeg and Adobe .Dng files

Chapter 2: Quiz