Light and Expression

I typed that title and now I see I could say a lot with those two words. Well, here is just a little bit.

I grabbed a few moments to take some photos of my littlest daughter last night after the sun had set. I could only get enough light outside, but I liked the quality of the light. It was soft, and rather flat, but at a great angle. Lots of open sky makes a gigantic (soft) light source, and with our deck and wall and nearby trees, the light was slightly up, so there was still some shadow cast by her nose and chin. This you do want in the photo as it gives the face shape. (on-camera flash completely flattens a face and washes out shape) I liked it because I wanted to emphasize her eyes and mouth particularly. She will be 17 months tomorrow and often what strikes me so much about her is the way she looks at me and expresses herself. The images ingrained in my mind are her eyes and mouth - conveying her intensity and interest in life.

I intentionally overexposed my images by 2 fstops, while placing her against a white wall. I didn't want to show much texture in the wall and wanted her skin to be soft compared to her features.

Oh, and when I'd say "hi!" to her she would respond with an "-eye" every time.

And sometimes I like monochrome:

Do you see the flour on her dress? Yes, I left it :-). She had found the flour bag when i was cooking and proceeded to pull out handfuls and dump them on the flour. She keeps me hopping, continually trying out something new, exploring, studying....never daydreaming for a moment.

I also looked for other photos as she moved about the deck. The light was fading, and I only could get a couple before we were done. I love this photo. My aperture was f2 (very shallow) which barely kept the front of her and her dress ruffle in focus, as I was quite close to her and was using my 135mm lens. This captures her spirit as well.

I do not leave any photo alone as it comes from the camera. As an artist I do not only look for the image I want in the moment, constantly recomposing and reaching for what I want, I also evaluate every image afterwards, and work with composition and the processing that I feel conveys what is in my mind. And there is another meaning you could draw from the word "expression"!

Here is one last image of her from last week. She was looking out the window at her sisters who were at the neighbor's house, knocking on their door (good friends of ours). Here I was using my 85mm prime lens with an aperture of 2.8 and I only over exposed by 2/3 of a stop. The window gives the  lovely directional soft light.