I'll trade you one day for night.

So, it's been quite the span between posts. As you can imagine, I've been busy. In the past month I think I've done more than anybody should attempt to do and remain sane. Most people will tell you that I was never sane in the first place, which probably clears up why the last month happened the way it did. Anyway, not wanting to leave the few readers I have hanging, here is a "day for night" portrait I took. What the in the whose its now? Day for night is simply a technique to make day look like night. Nice how that name works out, isn't it. The basics of it are that you meter your background and your subject seperately. Once you have that, you under expose the background by about 3 stops. This number will vary based on the look you want, but its a good start. Now, you may be wondering how the subject remains brightly lit. What you do is set a manually adjustable flash to expose the subject properly. Wa-la! The background now looks like night while the subject is properly lit. One of the keys to doing this is setting up the shot such that it looks natural. Overhead street lamps and brick walls make for perfect settings. Most of the time, out in nature doesn't quite work, unless maybe you are going for an alien abduction look. Or maybe the on camera flash look. But if you were going for that, why not just wait until night and take the picture then?