Dawn’s Early Light
01.10.2010
Another weekend day means another small post.
This was taken on December 22. It had gotten colder that night (about 30 degrees or so – which, given the current temps in the teens, seems like a balmy temperature) and a good bit of fog had settled. The floodlight on the corner of the garage made me a think a photo was in order. For those of you who saw my previous post, Stealing Home Part 1, you’ll notice I get inspired by this place in my driveway. A little timer action on the camera and you have a self-portrait.
- This was shot at ISO100, f/2.0, .5s, -2EV
- In the comments, Anton wanted to know how much editing went into the photo. He wondered how the light ended up as it did. I took 22 timed photos that night, trying to find just the right combination of exposure and angle. Most photographers want to get as close to the final image as possible in-camera (meaning no edits are necessary). It never quite works out that way, but I just kept shooting until I had something I was fairly satisfied with right in the camera. Here’s the before and after. Edits included some rotation, color, contrast, and crop. Pulled up the orange of the background light. And I burned the left side of the photo a bit (for those who don’t know, burning is when you darken part of a photo).
- Kind of a funny story about this photo…It was taken early in the morning sometime after seeing Avatar with my buddies Seth and Tyler. Seth bought this massive Dr Pepper that the three of us shared (I know, it’s cute and adorable. Whatever.). At one point, I took a drink and I felt some ice cubes fall from the cup onto the hoodie I’m wearing in the photo. I got home, took this photo, and went to bed. The next morning, I woke up, put on the same hoodie, and went to meet a friend for coffee. When I got back, I started to edit the photo and there was a huge brown spot right on my chest.
I thought, “What in the WORLD is that brown thing on my chest?” I remembered I was wearing the hoodie, and looked down, only to find the huge brown spot right there. What I thought were just ice cubes falling on my hoodie the night before was actually Dr. Pepper spilling all over me. I didn’t know and nobody at the coffee shop told me, but I don’t blame them. That’s an awkward moment. “Hey, bro, you’ve got a huge brown stain on your white sweatshirt. Might wanna think about washing that thing every now and again.” Some quick Photoshop healing made everything new and, if I hadn’t told you this story, you’d think I did my laundry regularly. Maybe I do. Maybe I don’t.
Throughout 2009, I shot a crazy number of photos but never posted them. For 40 consecutive days, I'm going to post these shoots. Something new every day!
I’m interested to know how much editing went into this photo. The light looks incredible. I love that it is just slightly more than a backlight, giving just enough frontal detail.