Cherishing the dark

Spiraea, originally uploaded by jiihaa.

Yellow, originally uploaded by jiihaa.

Nettles, originally uploaded by jiihaa.

Mark Hobson made several interesting observations in a posting under the term "density", of which I quote here a sentence:

I have always liked subjects / scenes that contained deep dark shadow areas. Relative to that preference, I have always chosen / used picturing techniques and post-picturing processing techniques (film and digital) that favor shadow detail, which, most definitely, create a rich "density" quality in my prints.

It took a while for this to sink in, until I realized this is something I have been striving towards in some of my postings, for example those nominally dealing with topics such as "dynamic range" or "HDR".

I guess it is a bit hard to learn to love the darkness, when here in Finland it is something we have to deal with - and fight against - during several long winter months each year.

But indeed, photographs which contain rich and substantive dark areas do have a presence which is rare in other kinds of photographs. (Although I probably wouldn't want to have such a print hanging on the wall...)