I took a small series of shots from the bouquet that I got for the ladies in my life when we came home from the hospital, hence the title of the shot – Growing Family. After missing last weeks POW, I realized this week that like this stem, with its delicate flowers, life with baby is going to be much different than it was before as priorities shift. Last week, I didn’t just forget, Friday came (and it likely didn’t help that we were doing an “in town” weekend trip) and outside of family, nothing was relevant.
But back to the shot. I this in bright sunlight, trying to underexpose the shadows to get a black, and then just get the highlights right. I think I just about got that with this shot, but it didn’t look right. So I bumped up the shadows (you can see the noise in the image) and it turned out much better. I’ve been playing with this trick quite a bit of late. I took a couple of portraits using the same technique with some of the babies around and it has produced some quite amazing images.
The sunlight is so much better a source than trying to use a flash/strobe to get the same effect – technically I think one could get the same colors and technical reproduction in the “lab”, but the sun and shadow allow candid captures that are so much more emotive than those you find in the studio.
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