Daily Photo – Jamie in Black and White
The Daily Photo series focuses on the two or three key creative choices, in terms of composition and processing, that go into creating an image. Specific technical details about the shot have been left out — you won’t hear me talking about tone curve adjustments and whatnot unless it was a key component of the end result.
Jamie sits on a stool in front of the setting sun.
Back in Austin tonight; posting this from the airport.
Exposure
- Shutter: 1/250
- Aperture: f/4
- ISO: 200
- Camera: Canon EOS 1Ds Mark III
- Lens: Canon EF 85mm f/1.2L II USM
Composition and Processing
- I wanted to catch the late afternoon light flooding over Jamie, but I was having trouble lining up the sun relative to the subject. The problem was the window frame. Whenever I got the light in an interesting position , the frame was too high and distracting. That’s part of the reason I cropped it this tight. In the final image the sun appears to be behind her left shoulder. In the original though, it’s under her left leg. That drew too much attention toward the feet, so I looked for different compositions to redirect the eye.
- Cropping the subject to the left let me include part of the window frame in the background. More important, it gave me a background and increased the sense of depth in the image. There’s good separation too, since the backlighting of the sun has lit up the edges of Jamie herself.
Original:
March 27 2009 04:03 pm | Photography