The world against the light
The general advice to photographers when creating photos these days is "open up the shadows", "get as much detail out of the shadows as you can" and "expose to the right to get shadow detail". But sometimes I do the opposite; crank down the shadows, expose to the left and remove detail from the shadows. It is true that modern digital cameras have an amazing ability to show detail in dark areas, but does that mean you always need to use that ability?
I have discovered over the years that you don't always need detail in shadows to create an effective story in the photo, and sometimes the story being told is enhanced by being simplified, with unnecessary information being invisible. In fact I now go looking for shots that I can capture with no shadow detail and lots of bright highlights (I have become a bit obsessed with it tbh).
This is world of silhouettes: where shapes are more important than colours, and detail across the entire image is not required.
