Light+and+Shadow

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=Light and Shadow=

// Saturday Night //
__Tags__: couch, children, boy, girl, evening, night, Saturday

__Critique Comments__:

I like this shot because I feel like this could be a Saturday night in 2009, 1979, or 1969. I have a covered back porch. The camera was on the tripod at about 5 feet high. The mode was set on manual focus with no flash. The ISO was high (more than 1000). The shutter speed was pretty slow, and the aperture was high. I shot this in color and then used various features in Gimp to make it black and white and increase contrast.

The children knew I was photographing them, and most shots did not work out due to their moving around so much. I intentionally turned on and positioned the lamp overhead (as seen over the girl), and I ended up wishing that I had positioned it a little less on the girl, so that it would serve as more of a back light. I also clone-stamped out a wall plug on the wall behind the girl because I found it distracting.

In terms of communicating the concept of chiaroscuro, I think the photo illustrates this well. Several of my peers wanted to see more contrast, but I am not sure what they mean by that. I look at the shot, and I see contrast. The girl is in light, and the boy is in shadow (on the couch). The blinds throw in contrasting bars of darkness across our view. I do think if I could have made the couch cushion to the left of the girl’s face darker, it might have added a nice contrast.

Compositionally, I cropped the shot closely so as to focus in on the girl. I like the way her body has a slightly angular position (rather than her legs sticking straight out at us). I also intentionally cropped on the left side to include the vertical string of the blinds. I like the way that framed the left-hand side of the shot. Finally, I wanted the swath of darkness in the lower left that included the barely-visible boy (who happened to be sitting still at that second!).

In terms of focus, the depth of field seems pretty wide, as the girl’s body is in focus (not sharp, mind you), from face to knees. I like the focus, although I would have liked to see if I could have gotten a sharper focus.

I think the tags match well. Perhaps I should add “sofa” or other such terms for people who don’t use the word “couch.”