Let’s first do a simple thought experiment that will help you visualize what is going on. Picture  a tap and  a bucket, now imagine filling the bucket to the top represents a “proper” exposure (I’ll explain it later on).  You can now relate the aperture as the size of the tap and the shutter speed as the length you leave the tap open. So if you have a bigger size tap, you won’t have to turn on the tap for as long and the inverse is true. If you want to get fancy you can imagine the bucket size as the ISO. The higher ISO you go the smaller the bucket gets. Simple, no?

If that went totally over your head, drop me a line or I’m sure someone out there can explain it better.

On to “proper” exposure. Now in my books, there is no such thing. Now let me explain. I use to think that proper exposure was that the needle in the viewfinder had to be in the middle and everything was peachy. I soon found out that where the needle went greatly depended on the scene I’m trying to photograph as well as the metering mode I was in. Throw in lights and I had no idea what to do. My next revelation was to use the histogram. As long as everything was inside the box (nothing clipping) it was all good. This kinda went out the window when you had a really high dynamic range scene, think dark forest with light rays streaming through illuminating certain areas. So This brings me to now. There is no “proper” exposure, you either got the shot you wanted or you didn’t. For example in my Ferrari shoot:

Here the shot is really overexposed. A lot of the image is pure white meaning on the histogram I had a ton of pixels clipping. On the exposure meter on the camera, I believe it had a reading of +1, and I’m on spot metering. But did I get a shot I wanted? Sure did.

In the next image, here I underexposed the image, notice all the pure blacks. I believe the meter was saying about -1 or -1.5. Again, did I get the shot I wanted? Sure did!

So what I’m trying to say here is, play around with your exposures! Stop defaulting to the “proper” exposures and worrying if the needle is pointed at zero. Don’t worry about clipping blacks or whites. Photography may start with rules but they eventually turn into guidelines.  And be glad you are in a digital era where you can instantly see your masterpiece (or lesson) right after you click the shutter. Purists may mock but it really accelerates learning when you don’t have to worry about wasting film. Sure it may develop bad habits, but that’s up to the photographer to be cautious about.

And on another note. I have found that adobe camera raw does a good job fixing exposures for raw files. I’ve bumped exposures up to +1.5 and down to -1 and was still pleased with the results.

I also took a look at what Chase Jarvis (one of my fav. photographers) had to say and he brought up some great points.

I’m no where near where these guys are in their career so let me bring forth my perspective.

First of all, I guess you can call me an amature photographer that’s trying to break into the industry. Starting about a year ago I will admit that I’ve done a ton of work for free… even when it’s not beneficial to me. I’ll chalk that up to my inexperience and gung-ho attitude towards anything that might get me exposure. Fast forward to now… I still haven’t broken into the industry but I’ve learned a lot so let me share with you.

When deciding to work for free you need to ask yourself these questions:

1. How will it benefit my portfolio?
   I’m still in the process of fixing this. About a month ago I started to do clean beauty shoots and I feel I’ve gotten to the point where I’m decent at them. But I still have models approaching me requesting these kinds of shoots for trade. Stupid me, I accept. It will not add anything to my portfolio as I do not need 10,000 clean beauty shots. I gotta learn to turn them down.
2. Will this give me exposure in the areas I want to work in?
   Again, something I’m working on. I use to scour craigslist looking for every and any photographic job. I soon realized that it was getting me no where and doing these odd jobs that I had no interest in was just killing the fun. Essentially, it was turning into a job instead of a passion.
3. Will this introduce me to connections I need?
   This one I’ve been pretty good with. But it did take awhile to learn. In the beginning I use to work with any and every model that would work with me (I suppose this is the same with everyone) but after I got together a decent portfolio I would still work with any and every model that would work with me. I eventually learned that it’s pretty pointless to work with newer models (unless you’re giving back and helping out someone with potential). Newer models will not have many (if any, especially internet models who are just doing this for good pictures for themselves) connections that they could refer you to. So it’s just a dead end.
4. Is this worth my time?
   Keep in mind that each time you do a shoot, it’s costing you money. Sure you’ve already paid off all your gear, but remember the wear and tear on your gear, gas to get to and from the location, the potential for your gear to get damaged, etc, etc

So that’s my story and how I go about determining if I should take on a job for free. Of course I still haven’t broken into the industry so all that might just be hog-wash. But hopefully it works!