Art at the Bain Water Works gallery

This installation was most memorable to the eye. The entire floor of the room was covered in porcelin balls that were used in the plant water filtration process. However photographing the room in an interesting way was problematic because the room was brightly lit by daylight coming in the 4 big windows, even more so where the sunlight hit the floor balls directly. Also the balls were very similar in color to the walls. If I exposed for the room there would have been little tonal range except for the sunlit balls and rear window that would have been washed out with over exposure.

I did 2 things to make the shot more dynamic. First I framed the shot with the camera just inches off the floor to make the near balls as large as possible. Second, I set my exposure on the near sunlit balls and underexposed by 2 stops. This is the result. The balls dominate the image and have a wide range of light while the room that was way underexposed goes very dark. This way the dark room compliments the sunlit balls as opposed to competing with them. The overall dark photo looks nothing like what the bright room looked like to the eye but for me the photo better reflects the conceptual way the mind sees the ball room.