"Distant Thoughts”
©David A. Ziser
I thought I would wrap the week with this beautiful portrait. It was made a few years ago while we were in Cabo, Mexico just relaxing and enjoying one of Cabo’s fabulous sunsets. Even though, the sunset was not that fantastic on this particular evening we enjoyed a the slight breeze, the sights, the smells and a wonderful bottle of wine didn’t hurt either.
But once the sun set below the horizon in the distance, we were left with a wonderful, soft evening glow. This was the perfect light to make this portrait. I simply turned Lindsay’s face to the light, but not too much – I still wanted the light to illuminate the camera side of her face.
It’s that light hitting the cheek closest to camera that gives this image it’s wonderful three dimensional look. Notice how her profile is beautifully sculpted with how I had the lighting wrap around her face. I then framed her up in my camera to give me that “Helen of Troy” profile feel. Positioning her in the bottom right quadrant of the frame adds to that powerful feeling.
The clouds played well into the composition leading the viewer’s eye directly to our subject. Wide angle lens have a habit of doing just that. The exposure was a bit more of a challenge. I wanted to hold detail in the shadows without blowing out the sky. I needed to underexpose the sky slightly and then resorted to Photoshop to bring back the shadows just a bit – not bad for a JPEG image. I thought all came together for a beautiful portrait of my Bonus daughter, Lindsay! Best of all - her mother was very pleased!!
Camera specs: Canon 40D fitted with 17-85mm IS lens at 17mm, F5.6 @ 1/60 second, ISO 500. Enjoy! -David
David, the first thing I thought when I saw this image is that it was your lovely wife LaDawn. Who is Lindsay?
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