Is shadow the new black?

AnCatDubh

Just flicking through the indo's life mag on Sunday and I was kinda a little surprised. Life mag is a obviously a 'glossy' with highly processed 'masterpieces' on display.

What surprised me was the amount of shadow visible in the photoshoots which were included. Two sets in particular demonstrated heavy enough shadows - not quite direct flash style but you'd know it was there and your eye gets drawn to it. Shadow is something that as a photographer you try to eliminate - i mean, its not flattering to the aesthetics of the image particularly if it is portrait work..... right??????? And i would have thought glossy or fashion work it would have been an extreme no-no or...... have i missed something????

So the question to you - is shadow (albeit controlled perhaps) the new style which we all should be emulating or letting our creative juices run wild with????

ThOnda

Why to avoid shadows? There is figural composition, tonal composition (made by tones of gray therefore shadows) and on top of it is colour composition.
I really don't get the question/problem.

AnCatDubh

Could just be me but i find shadow almost always (barr a small number of examples notibly in the b/w domain) detracting from an image. From most of what i've seen if there is shadow present its kinda yeuch.

I haven't really thought of shadow in terms of its compositional properties. Note to self - study needed in this area

Apart from the yeuchy aspect, it just appeared very prevalent in the published works so i was wondering is there a trend at present.

ThOnda

That could be few things like photographer's style, graphic designer's style or just intention to achieve some effect on readers.
It's really hard to find out what you mean without knowing what images are we talking about. However I wouldn't consider it as something special. Maybe because I like low key pictures :-)

pete4130

I think deliberate "bad" photography is the in thing at the minute. I've seen alot of published fashion shots that most of us here would consider dire...poor colours, grainy/noisy, harsh/direct flash with shadows. Puma & Nike adverts in the likes of Mongrel magazine spring to mind.

challengemaster

pete4130 wrote: »

I think deliberate "bad" photography is the in thing at the minute. I've seen alot of published fashion shots that most of us here would consider dire...poor colours, grainy/noisy, harsh/direct flash with shadows. Puma & Nike adverts in the likes of Mongrel magazine spring to mind.

Recession = companies doing things themself with a compact

aficionado

Seen them pics myself,
I quite liked some of them, one of the main pictures of Jenifer Maguire was good I thought,
Pretty sure the photographer used a beauty dish for that effect.
Think she was tryin to achieve a high fashion look

smelltheglove

I hate shadow, when I have a nice pic and there is shadow I do be so disappointed in myself.

There is this 'trend' going on though, I find a lot of pictures very EMOISH if that can even be used as a word, dark, gloomy, moody sort of cr** but there does be the odd one here and there that beams of inspiration and purpose, but it is the very odd one IMO.

AnCatDubh

I think ThOnda's idea of shadow as a compositional element is interesting (perhaps worthy of a boards challenge *calling mike the winner*)

@aficionado - i quite liked them myself too tbh but thought the shadow detracted from what otherwise would have been what i would have expected in the mag - high glossy fashion worthy stuff. The shadow was reasonably soft from what I recall.

@pete4130 - your post reminded me of a large format behind the cash registers of Du-nes boutique (eh... Dunnes Stores!). It was blown up to about 25ft X 10ft but the image was so pixelated it was unreal. The subject of the image was a lady but you could clearly see a bad dose of 5 o'Clock shadow - the pixel effect was so bad. It was an image that should never have been stretched that far. Probably would have been fine as a 4x6

@Rachel - I'm with you on that one - a great shot can be ruined by harsh shadow. To be fair to the indo photographer, it had to have been controlled somewhat - i'd describe it as soft shadow, still very imposing on the image, but not harsh or direct. Perhaps aficionado's assessment on the beauty dish is right.

Found this for any make and do peoples. The example shots show it all. And next time i get shadows on a shot i'll just claim they are beautified!