Photographing with right exposure may not be the right way
When you start photography, the advice you get is to photograph at right exposure. And most of the times it is the right exposure. It ensures you get the complete dynamic range of the camera so that you don’t lose details in shadows or highlights. When you are shooting professional, Landscapes or architecture it plays a pivotal role to make sure you have all the details to work with.
To get more details, some photographers prefer shooting at “to the right” histogram, which captures more details from the darkest area without losing highlights.
Then, why not use the right exposure?
Well, as you shoot more and more, photographing with perfect exposure becomes very normal and lose drama in the image. Especially when you are photographing nature or people having little drama in the frame makes it more interesting. Especially in street photography, wildlife and nature images.
Yes, it is possible to capture at right exposure and increase or decrease the exposure to get the image you want it. But, visualizing and capturing the image the way you want it is challenging and at the same time increases your ability to create better compositions.
This also enables you to capture images even at harsh lights and still make better images than the rest. So I prefer shooting at -2 or +2 exposure compensation to get the image you want. It is not to say, i always shoot like this but when I see opportunity to capture some fine art and interesting frames, I shoot this way.
Having underexposed shot while there is a harsh light adding shape to the subject or overexposing the frame to get the details of the shadow side make the frame more interesting. Yes, you need to know post processing a bit to bring what you visualized.
