Lesson #5 ~ Underexposed, Overexposed - Mistakes Happen!

Mossy walls like this are fun to photograph because of the "landscapes" and textures they provide. I liked this spot below because of the water drip, but couldn't get the autofocus on my camera to capture just what I wanted.

Mossy Wall

Unfortunately, I sometimes forget to double-check the aperture and exposure time when I switch from auto to manual. This was one of those times! Ugh, some of the resulting photos were almost black. Big mistake. But after playing around with brightness, contrast and saturation settings, the result was actually pretty cool in appearance.

Mossy Wall ~ Underexposed

Something similar happened during my 365 project recently. I forgot entirely I had the camera set to manual and started snapping away without bothering to look at the viewfinder previews. Voila! Severely overexposed photos that ended up looking almost pure white. Again, I played with the settings, this time with an even more surreal result.

Robin Red Breast ~ 101/365 ~ 2011

The appearances of these last two photos is unique. It was fun to play with these mistakes. Had I been taking photos for anyone but myself, though, this would have been a problem. I must remember to pay closer attention when I change shooting modes.

Kinda strange that I hadn't done this sort of thing before, I guess that means previously I've been paying better attention when I switch between manual and auto, while these two times I didn't. The bird photo happened at the end of a long, exhausting walk and the moss photo troubles occurred because I was trying to maintain balance on a rocky slope - not exactly wandering around a formal affair snapping smiling faces. Still, now I know.

And knowing is half the battle.