Realized I was metering for shadows wrong after 6 years

I've been shooting a Canon AE-1 since I found it at a garage sale in Portland for $40. For the longest time I thought I was doing everything right, but every roll came back with blown highlights. Last month I was at a meetup and this older guy looked at one of my prints and just said, "you're letting the shadows run the show." I had no idea what he meant. He explained that I was setting my exposure off the darkest part of the scene, so everything brighter just got torched. I went back and tried metering off a mid-tone instead, like the sidewalk or my hand, and the difference was night and day. Felt kind of dumb that I'd been doing it wrong since I started developing at home in my bathroom. Has anyone else hit that moment where a simple tip turned their negatives around? What was your fix?

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wendy62817d ago

That shadow meter thing is so real. I spent two years nuking every sunset shot because I kept pointing at the dark rocks. Then someone told me to use the palm of my hand and add a stop. Fixed it overnight. Now I know if the sky looks white in the viewfinder, I'm doing it wrong again. Simple as that.