The Aesthetic Dimensions in Art and Society

Chapter 6: Contrast In photography, “contrast” is the ratio between the darkest dark and the lightest light within a frame. It’s said to be “soft” when there’s very little difference between the lights and darks,  “medium” in what we regard as normal, and “high” when an image has both maximum blacks and brightest whites.” Contrast […]

V. Contrast / Social Contrast

Technically speaking, “contrast” in the pictorial realm is the ratio between the darkest dark and the lightest light in an image. “Soft” contrast at one end of the continuum indicates that there’s very little difference between the lights and darks, the extreme being a “muddy” or “flat” image, gray overall—as in the image below.   […]