Hello Friends!

Many people often ask me how I get that “light and airy” look that is so popular and sought after so I am here to debunk some of the myths and hopefully help you in getting that look!  The bright, soft, “light and airy” look is one of the most respected and sought after looks in the photography industry so it doesn’t come as a surprise that people are willing to spend big bucks on someone who knows what they are doing.

Your high paying brides want to see all of that detail in the dress that they searched so long to find and paid so much money for.  The tiny details in the lace that made them fall in love with that dress is something they want to see in their photos and not some plain white dress that they could have just ordered online.  So before you start believing the “I meant to overexpose and I wanted it that bright” statements that you may hear…. ask yourself why someone would intentionally destroy details when they didn’t have to?  Except a white sky- everyone knows I love a blown out sky at times.

Alright let’s get into it…

Now before we go any further I want to take a step back and look at where some of these myths came from.  This bright and airy look comes from film which is a completely different format than digital.  Being a hybrid shooter myself I understand the difference in exposure from film to digital but if you’ve never shot film here is a good rule of thumb to follow: In film you are protecting the shadows; with digital you are protecting the highlights.  Film has a lot of latitude and is very forgiving with highlights so you can really overexpose that film and it will save the detail in the highlights.  Digital is very forgiving with the shadows but not so much with the highlights.  The reality is that once you blow out those highlights they are GONE and there’s no way of getting that back.  That is where you start seeing those white blobs in photos- they didn’t intentionally blow those out….

So what’s the answer here?  The answer is when shooting digital you need to underexpose.  Yes you read correct- underexpose.  Now I know this may seem a little counterintuitive but if the detail lives in the shadows that means you can underexpose and  bring up the exposure in post edit while still retaining that detail without blowing out those highlights.  So when in doubt- underexpose ever so slightly and bring that exposure back up in post.

Most people know that I work with Alyssa quite a bit so we decided to show that you don’t need ideal lighting conditions with an amazing background to get this look.  We decided to do a mini shoot to show you what I mean by underexposing.  We went into her backyard and set up a simple bed linen for a background so you can see all of the folds and creases in the sheet.  The images below are straight out of camera and the exposure has not been adjusted on the left.  I hope this has been helpful and something you can start implementing in your images!  Be sure to check out Alyssa’s instagram as well!