I shot this after my cousin’s dance recital, once everyone left. It was quite dark, so I pushed it to ISO800 and went down to F1.6, taking the opportunity to use a shallow depth of field. The theater is a dead one if I’ve seen one, in this picture at least. I like the colors of the chairs, and the lighting was nice and indirect, despite the dimness.
What did I do to this? First, I cloned out the open door in the background, which was a big, white, ugly distraction. I couldn’t get the wall to look right; it looked fake and too smooth. I didn’t want to deal with it, so I just pumped up the contrast till the background went to black. An effective solution in a pinch, and it adds to the mood of… deadness. Finally, I made the colors less yellow and burned in the corners (vignetting).
Canon Rebel XTi, EF 50mm 1:1.4, 1/60, F1.6, 50mm, ISO800, 2008-06-22T00:52:14-04, 20080622-005214rxt
Download the high-res JPEG or download the source image (Canon Rebel XTi RAW file).
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Credit me as Richard X. Thripp and link here.
Richard X. Thripp at 2009-10-07T01:33:27.The wooden handle? Do you mean that red thing at the bottom? That’s another seat…
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luovahulluus at 2009-10-07T21:34:14.I mean the birch-colored thing between the two focused seats.
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Richard X. Thripp at 2009-10-07T22:32:10.Oh my goodness I see it now! I never noticed that before… I’ve looked at this photo dozens of times. Printed dozens of copies of it. It is annoying… and it is a wooden handle.
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luovahulluus at 2009-10-07T21:36:00.Maybe it’s not a wooden handle, but I still don’t like it
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Richard X. Thripp at 2009-10-07T22:32:23.Arm rest, actually.
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