"Color Me Special"

"Color Me Special"
© David A. Ziser

This is one of my favorite images from last week’s shoot.  We had just pulled around to park the cars in the underground parking lot when I spotted this unusual piece of urban art.  I thought, “Wow, what a great place for a portrait!”

We parked the cars and headed back out and eventually headed to the colorful artistic structure.  Looking at it straight on from camera left showed 9 vertically hanging panels with about 12 inches of space between them.  By rotating around to camera left, I could get each of the panels to slightly overlap with the one behind it to get the scene you see – it was an amazing combination of color and repeating elements.

But look more closely at the colors of this scene.  Notice how the orange color curves  down the right side of the frame leading the viewer’s eye right to the subject who is in the center of the frame.  That color continues “through” the subject with the smaller orange rectangles on her left and right.

Notice too the contrasts of the rectangular elements with the curve of the orange color element on the right and the S-curve pose of the subject in the middle of the frame.

The sun was directly overhead putting Hope’s face in complete shadow giving me the perfect opportunity to add my own dimensional lighting to the scene.  Lighting was from camera left, my strobe at full power through my Zumbrella.

This is simply a wonderful image full of color and contrasts that the viewer can just linger and enjoy.

Camera specs: Canon 7D fitted with 70-200mm IS lens at 200mm F11 @ 1/320 second, ISO 200.  Enjoy!  -David