The last shot from my adventure with Sarah, and the most artsy. We went to the college theater, where they have a meshed window that makes patterns of light like this on the wall. I had her sit on the carpet so the light was right on her cheek, and told her to look down like she was thinking, and that’s how we got this.

I’m proud of her; she was quite shy and this was her first time modeling, but she let go of her shyness and let her spirit shine through. I think there’s a bit of shyness in this photo, but it works.

At first she thought she wasn’t “photogenic.” That’s a limiting belief. It’s like saying you’re not lingual or musical or logical. You are photogenic; you just have to start thinking of the camera as your friend rather than a deadly weapon.

Canon Rebel XTi, EF 50mm 1:1.4, 1/60, F2.5, 50mm, ISO400, 2008-10-01T13:31:17-04, 20081001-173117rxt

This is from the photo-shoot with Sarah; we bumped into Brice from Reunion. I told them to pretend to be meeting, and Sarah hammed it up for the camera. There was no reason to pretend, because they were in fact meeting for the first time.

I wanted to make Sarah look angelic, so I brightened around her, reddened her hair, and added contrast to her eyes; it adds a lot to her personality. The last step was to add color and contrast to the brick wall. The college’s buildings make good backgrounds for photos.

Canon Rebel XTi, EF 50mm 1:1.4, 1/640, F2.8, 50mm, ISO100, 2008-10-01T13:23:58-04, 20081001-172358rxt

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.

You can use the models’ likenesses for anything not defamatory. You are one of my “licencees.”

I took some photos of Sarah this week; we walked around campus and found Mr. Patrick playing guitar. He was really putting his heart in it; the song he’s singing here is Goodnight, Irene. Sarah is enjoying listening, while shyly eying the camera.

Editing on this: I added a glow effect and darkened the brick wall, especially at the corners, which keeps your eyes from darting out of the frame.

Canon Rebel XTi, EF 50mm 1:1.4, 1/640, F2.8, 50mm, ISO100, 2008-10-01T13:17:34-04, 20081001-171734rxt