#21 in a series of background briefs

Revealing more, not less

  • “Reveal more of the subject, not less of it”

    This phrase is a summary of the rinairs approach to multiple kinds of actions and manipulations.

    For information-reportage photography (as well as for news reportage), respected news agencies will always favor revealing more of the subject rather than revealing less of it.

    Note, however, that the final result also must meet rinairs for brightness relationships, which is why HDR — which is often used “to reveal more of the subject” — can disqualify photographs from P7 when used to excess.

    • Four examples of the principle

  • 1. Swing and tilt

    Swing and tilt do not disqualify a photograph from TTG when they are used to show prominent areas of the photograph more in focus ...

    . . . but contraswing and contratilt effects (which show prominent areas of the photograph less in focus) always disqualify the result from P7 and from TTG.

  • 2. Burning and dodging

    Moderately burning bright areas and dodging dark areas in order “to reveal more of the subject” generally does not disqualify photographs from rinairs or from P7...

    . . . but burning dark areas and dodging light areas in order to reveal less of the subject often disqualifies the result from rinairs and from P7.

  • 3. Motion blur

    TTG photographs can depict objects in motion as less blurred (or even frozen “still”) compared to how a camera or smartphone would depict them when on automatic settings...

    . . . but depicting moving objects as more blurred (or making them invisible) — compared to how a camera or smartphone would depict them when on automatic settings — will disqualify the resulting image from P4 and P5, thanks to the sasibe standard.

  • 4. Dimly lit subjects

    When a dimly lit subject fills the frame* (for example, the ornate ceiling of a historic opera house), rinairs will look much more favorably on brightening the photograph to reveal more of the subject than on darkening the photograph to reveal less of it.

    Some dimly lit interiors — a very large room illuminated solely by candles, for instance — only reveal themselves after one has spent a number of minutes in the room letting one’s eyes adjust to the darkness.

    Since viewers of photographs cannot be expected to wait for several minutes for their eyes to adjust — photographers rarely have any control over the viewing conditions of their photographs — rinairs generally would not require a photograph of a dimly lit interior to be rendered as darkly as it looks when one enters the room (that is, almost entirely black).

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    *Note with regard to #4 that when a dimly lit subject does not fill the frame, the TTG photographer must pay attention to brightness relationships in the scene if the photograph is to meet rinairs and P7.

    In practical terms, that means that a dimly lit area that is only in part of the frame typically cannot be rendered as brightly as it would be if the dimly lit area filled the frame.