Christmas Angel

In this “found photo”, I wanted to capture the light shining on the angel, but also the light shining through the angel’s somewhat translucent right wing. The challenge was to find an exposure that wouldn’t totally burn out the left side while catching the light coming through the wing.

I set the exposure for the angel’s left side.  The simplest way to do this was to meter a gray card held right in front of the angel while angling the gray card so it was facing the brightest light source.

An aperture of f/11 gave me enough depth of field for the angel while softening the background (using the depth of field preview button really helps). The camera had to be on a tripod for the long exposure.

The RAW image was processed with Adobe Camera Raw. Adjustments were made to neutralize the white balance. The exposure was adjusted in the shadow areas using the “Fill Light” slider and in the highlights with the “Recovery” slider.

More information on exposure, using a gray card, depth of field, and white balance is in my book, Digital Photography Exposure for Dummies.

Photo Data: Canon 5D, Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L lens at 88 mm. f/11, 8 seconds, ISO 100.