"Close To The Big Day"

"Close To The Big Day"
© David A. Ziser

This past weekend I photographed the Bar Mitzvah of Charlie, a very personable young 13 year old who is ready to take on the world.  This image is of Charlie’s brother Louis a few years ago the day before his Bar Mitzvah. It was good to re-connect with Louis and family at Charlie’s celebration.

This congregation practices Conservative Judaism. That means that when I have an event at this synagogue, no images can be captured during the actual event which is during the Holy Sabbath. As a result, we schedule a photo session which captures the highlights of the service on the Friday before the Saturday service.

In addition to all the photographs I make with Rabbi and the family members, I also like to get a few images of the young man or young lady within the surrounds of the temple interior in which they will conduct a substantial part of the Saturday service. I think these images convey a sense of responsibility that the young Bar Mitzvah knows he is accepting on his/her important day and add an important part of the story to the final album.

Since I’m in Lexington, KY today and don’t have ready access to Charlie’s images, I called on Louis to do the Image Of The Day duties for today.

Lighting was accomplished with my strobe coming in from camera right at 1/8 power through my Zumbrella.  Balancing the ambient light with the strobe gave a nice feeling to the overall presentation of the image.

Camera specs; Canon 40D fitted with 10-22mm lens at 14mm, F5.6 @ 1/50 second, ISO 800. Light coming from  8 feet from the right, my flash shooting through my standard translucent umbrella. Enjoy! -David