This post describes some of the choices involved in photographic tone reproduction, that is, how bright or dim each part of a photo is.

We may tend to think of photographs as just objectively recording light and displaying it. But this is not the case. Photographic tone reflects many choices made by the photographer and the camera manufacturer. Nowadays, our mobile phone photos are getting better and better, applying much more sophisticated—but hidden—aesthetic choices.

This, along with my previous post on perspective, are part of a broader theme of how paintings and photographs arise from artistic and technical choices. Photographs are not objective recordings of reality, nor are paintings direct depictions of the artist’s experience. I say more about this in the subsequent post.