THE CHALLENGE

We’ve looked at photographing a subject in open shade with a bright background, but what about a subject in shade with a background that’s in even deeper shade? If you expose for the foreground and the subject, your background fades into darkness. If you expose for the darker background, you could overexpose the subject. Fill flash could help illuminate your subject, but then everything behind it would fall into black. How can you create a universally well-exposed image with both the foreground subject and darkened background well lit, well exposed, and clearly visible?