Sunday, October 23, 2022

Clipping and Halation

 This photo, taken yesterday at the Flint Institute of the Arts in Michigan, is a good example of clipping and halation,

The sunlight enters the room through a big window, edge lighting the two figures and leaving a bright trapezoid on the floor. 

The light is so bright that the camera's sensor overloads and goes to pure white, a phenomenon photographers call "clipping." It has the same effect on our retinas, though our eyes can adapt to far greater extremes of illumination than the camera sensor.

Because of the extreme brightness and a dirty or imperfect lens, the lines in the floor disappear when they cross into the patch of light, and there's a light glow around the edge of the light patch.

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3 comments:

  1. Susan KrzywickiOctober 23, 2022 at 10:35 AM

    I missed what "halation" means - are the two terms the same?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. SkadjerOctober 28, 2022 at 11:55 AM

      The halation is the halo or glow surrounding the light patch.

      Delete
  2. CerverGirlOctober 31, 2022 at 12:56 PM

    I have the same question about halation. I’ve read in a book you recommended, “Carlson’s Guide to Landscape Painting,” that Carlson writes about light as it wraps around upper, thin tree branches – how they can become lighter in value because of it, and have a tendency to disappear. Is that halation? Thank you James!

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