Light and Composition



She sees You (Framing)
(ISO: 800, Shutter speed: 4'')



Horse Bathing (Rule of Thirds)
(ISO: 800, Shutter speed: 1/30)


The Bad Seed (Vantage Point)
(ISO: 800, Shutter speed: 1/25)


Sunny Boy (Contrasty Light)
(ISO: 100, Shutter speed: 1/25)


Who's that Knocking at my Door? (Diffuse Light)
(ISO: 400, Shutter speed: 1/30)


The Search for Happiness (Window Light)
(ISO: 800, Shutter speed: 1/30)




Once again, I had a blast making these pictures. I think I discovered a new love. 

In She sees You I was playing around with the headboard of Lydia's bed trying to somehow capture her through the wooden bars. It was night time and quite dark in her room; from my angle the camera had a lot of trouble focusing so I helped it a bit by adding a light source (aka me holding a flashlight in her face), which explains the cooler light on one side. I also cropped the picture a little bit from the sides so we really have a view through these 2 single wooden bars

Horse Bathing  was a random try I did to see if I could capture perhaps a photograph for the rule of thirds. I was happy with the result; I didn't had to say anything to her, just taking a few pictures while she was playing in the tub. I positioned myself so she wouldn't be right in the middle of it. I like the fact that her head in placed between the 2 tiles with the flowers.

In The Bad Seed,  I had a plan; I was to lay down on the bathroom floor and she was to wear a mask and look down at me. After quite a few tries and different masks, we finally got this one. Once again, the camera had trouble focusing so once again, I held out a flashlight to her face. I decided to put the picture in black and white for additional drama.

In Sunny Boy, the kids were super reluctant on helping me with the pictures. I really wasn't sure what I was going to capture on that sunny day; I tried different things thinking that at least, I was going to get a contrasty light picture out of it. Fortunately, I did. I cropped it a tiny bit from the left so we wouldn't see as much houses but kept in the green tree, reminiscent of the green in his jacket. 

Strangely (maybe) the diffuse light picture was the hardest for me to achieve. I tried many different things, different locations and settings to finally get back on my front porch on a rainy Sunday afternoon with Lydia (begging her to switch her pink jacket for the yellow one) and desperately tried to get a good shot. I was finally happy with Who's that Knocking at my Door?  

The Search for Happiness is my favorite one of the bunch. I always liked the way the daylight comes through the bathroom window (I do like the bathroom, it does appear in 3 of these photographs), and right away I knew how I wanted to use it in the picture. Well, it is a small bathroom so there is no 2 ways about it; if we were to see the light without seeing the actual window, the best spot was on the toilet. So I shared my idea with Lydia who started laughing and when I was setting up, trying to figure out the best setting and position, I asked her to hold a book. We tried different things and then it clicked. I gave her the new issue of the National Geographic; ``The Search for Happiness``to hold in her hands. I kept that shot. 





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