© Joel Silverman

A silver reflector can turn a snapshot into a professionally-lit photograph.  An image like this has subjects in dark forest withbright mid-day lake scenery visible behind them.  Perfect exposure for the subjects would mean “blowing out” the lake because the exposure range of the camera can′t handle such a great difference in brightness.  By using a reflector to brighten up the subjects, their brightness level is closer to the background and so the contrast is lowered to a usable range.