Dont Eat My Finger, People Are Looking
Most of my photographs I like to imagine as still frames from a movie; it's one of the main reasons I favour a 21:9 aspect ratio (the nearest equivalent to Panavision's 35mm anamorphic cinema ratio of 2.39:1). There's something about a proper widescreen aspect that gives an illusion of there being more rather than the logical assumption that, being letter-boxed, there's less.
In this particular shot, the colours really lent themselves to a deeply cinematic treatment where saturation and brightness are lowered and contrast is raised, to attempt to replicate the native look of 35mm movie film. The warm and strong orange light from the sun, on a hot summer's day, was just perfect for tweaking in post-processing. A delicate vignette was added to aid the idea of a really old lens being used and (as always!) no HDR.
The subject matter is slightly amusing, I'm not too sure what was going on but the woman appeared to be about to eat the man's finger, and this is a typical example of how innocent movements in the course of every day life can, if freeze-framed, be pulled out of context and given a completely new meaning; such is the power of the camera.
Shot with my reliable Pentax K10D (soon to be replaced), and a 135mm SMC prime lens I bought in 1985 which still works exceptionally well, though on this occasion coupled to a cheapish x2 teleconverter to allow me to stand 60-80 feet away and capture moments like these undetected — one of the difficulties of candid photography.
Comments [0]