My blog post a couple of days ago brought me back to a photograph I took on a visit to Timoleague a few years back, and I thought I’d post another favourite from that day. At first glance this is a landscape shot, but I actually consider it to be a portrait. And the subject in this shot is my father.
I like the shot for a couple of reasons.
Firstly the ambient light was close to perfect. It was late on a winter’s afternoon, not long after the shortest day of the year in fact, and the sun was low in the sky to the west (camera left). You can tell this by the shadows (e.g. on the signpost). That winter sun was in a clear blue sky, and cast a warm glow on the scene.
Secondly, there’s nice colour and detail in the scene. While it was intended as a portrait, the background of the shot presents interest for the viewer, and is enhanced by that nice ambient light. In particular I like how the stone wall is exposed.
Finally, the composition of the shot, which itself makes it not an obvious portrait, ensures there’s plenty to hold the viewer’s interest. I think most viewer’s explore the photo, drawn first perhaps to the signposts (which indirectly identify where the shot was taken of course), and the signposts themselves almost direct the viewer’s attention right and left. And it is on this second sweep of the shot that you pick out the figure looking through binoculars, who although the point of sharpest focus in the image, is therefore not the immediate obvious subject.
My father has had that set of binoculars as long as I can remember, and on this occasion was using them to get a closer look at the bird life out of frame at camera right.
I did some dodging and burning on this photograph in Aperture during post processing. Dodging is where you lighten areas of the photograph, and burning is where you darken areas. I burnt the signpost to Barryroe, which was in full sunlight, and so a little too bright and too much of a distraction. Additionally, the section of the house right behind my father was almost white, and again just drew the eye from the main subject. To hold the eye on that subject, I dodged a little around my father’s face. A quick tweak of contrast and colour balance then, and the shot was complete.
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