topic Photographing shadows in General Discussion

Photographing shadows

stevet1 — Sun, 10 May 2026 12:29:02 GMT

Philosphically, I get a kick out photographing shadows.

Shadows are formed by something else blocking the light. In essence though, they are not really there. They are there because of the absence of something else. You can see them, but you can't touch them. You can't pick them up and move them around. You can't hear them or smell them or taste them.

They change as you move around and change your perspective, but they can't move on their own.

In essence, you are photographing something that is not there. The thought tickles me.

Steve Thomas

Re: Photographing shadows

fesem28470 — Mon, 11 May 2026 09:07:33 GMT

There is a profound irony in capturing shadows because you are essentially documenting a "negative" space. While we treat them as physical subjects, a shadow is merely a localized absence of photons txtag a silhouette of what is missing. You aren't photographing an object, but rather the relationship between a light source and an obstruction.

Re: Photographing shadows

Waddizzle — Mon, 11 May 2026 10:56:08 GMT

I enjoy landscape photography, mainly for the exercise these days. I periodically encounter situations where I want to capture shadowed areas within the field of view.”. My solution is to capture a bracketed exposure to process as a HDR composite.

I would select photos for an image stack in Lightroom. I would export the stack to Photoshop as separate layers of a single image. PS will align the layers and then flatten them into a single JPG.

Re: Photographing shadows

LeeP — Mon, 11 May 2026 12:31:43 GMT

This would be an excellent assignment for a photography class.

I may have to give myself an assignment.

Thank you for the inspiration.

Re: Photographing shadows

Waddizzle — Wed, 13 May 2026 16:51:13 GMT

“

This would be an excellent assignment for a photography class.

I may have to give myself an assignment.

Thank you for the inspiration. “

———————————

I used to spend an entire weekend, weather permitting in an urban setting, photographing subjects that were a specific shape or color.

This is from a squares weekend.

Go for primary colors. Tricks of light.

Re: Photographing shadows

LeeP — Wed, 13 May 2026 17:26:57 GMT

Also an excellent assignment. Our photography teacher has an assignment where she gives students a word that is to be somehow represented in the photographs for the assignment in addition to students having to find each letter of the word--without engineering something--and put it into a photograph.

This year she did "serenity" so the portfolio was 8 photographs (S-E-R-E-N-I-T-Y) and each photograph had to depict serenity.