A lovely portrait. The pose strikes a terrific balance of poise and dynamism, which is really hard to accomplish.
A good example of how a certain amount of asymmetry can keep a photo from being completely static. Very nice colors here too. Nonetheless, the empty bench has become something of a visual trope in photography, and I haven't yet seen a take on the theme that really seems resolved.
I tried it myself a few months ago. I wanted to do something with this elegant marble bench that is nicely positioned in a wooded area and beneath a street lamp. I thought maybe I could get past the cliche of simple 'emptiness' by putting a prop on the bench, so I went out and bought the most perfect red rose I could find, tied a ribbon around it with a letter attached, and planned to do a photo with some romantic ambiguity: is it love lost, love spurned, or a connection missed? That's what I hoped to accomplish, anyway. I set up a couple of gelled strobes, cleared cigarette butts and other litter away from the bench, positioned the rose conspicuously on the bench, and waited for the street lamp to come on. I took about 15 shots from two different angles and ultimately deleted every one of them in disgust. I found that I was unable to nail the concept I had in mind; in the end, it just looked like an empty bench, alas.
^^Very interesting play on the topic. Symmetrical devices imaged in an asymmetrical frame. Nice attention to all the details of a fine photo as usual. I especially like the way one of the windmill towers is in a dominating position up front. Was it hard for you to persuade it to move or was it just photogenic? The exposure time is just right to show movement without blurring too much. How many shots did you take before hitting it just this way? And don't say "One...).
Thanks, Dale. I just had a look at that folder of photos to answer your question. The shot I posted was the fifth in a series, but somehow I managed to get the exposure right on the first shot. I guess I estimated 1/10s would be about right, and indeed it was, but I kept experimenting anyway. I subsequently tried 1/20s and 1/40s before coming back to 1/10s, where I had started. The first shot is nearly identical to the one I posted, but it's a bit softer (as I said before, I was holding the tripod down with all of my weight, so it wasn't exactly stable), and the alignment of the windmill blades isn't as nice (not all of them break the line of the clouds). The fifth shot miraculously came out tack sharp, and the blades of the various windmills were more "legible," so that's the one I picked.
I must say it's not one of my favorite shots. I'm not crazy about the mostly blank sky. The clouds are all crowded down at the bottom of the frame, where they aren't doing much for the photo. If they were moving quickly across the top of the frame, showing a bit of motion blur, now that might be a more interesting photo. Oh well.
By the way, on Sunday I did take a photo specifically with this challenge topic in mind, but I posted it to the Daily Thread already. It's
this one.
BTW, that gallery might go away soon. I'm working on a new gallery and am considering deleting the old one when the new one goes live.
