THE CHALLENGE

When shooting landscapes, you’re often faced with variable lighting, particularly when photographing at dawn, at dusk, or when the light is otherwise coming from a low angle. Often, you’ll find that your background is brightly illuminated by low-angled sunlight, yet elements in your foreground have fallen into shadow. If you make a simple exposure, metering off the background, your foreground will record as a dark silhouette devoid of any detail. Forget those interesting rocks or colorful flowers; they’re now an unrecognizable mass or dark shapes. If you want a storytelling image with a full beginning (foreground), middle (middle ground), and end (background), you need to find a way to illuminate those foreground elements in a way that matches the rest of the composition.