Side-Lighting

The light side, The dark side, and Contrast

Aujourd'hui en classe, we took side-lit portraits. (That sentence begins 'today in class' in French) This is when, in a portrait, light falls on one side of a person's face, but the other side is left misted in mysterious darkness. I chose this picture because I liked the way the light sparkled in her red hair--you can actually see little glittering flecks--and the shadows on her face showed up really well, with good contrast. Also she is smiling a nice, natural smile. The shadows in this one I do really like because of their abstract blobish-ness and the way they create patterns that aren't just straight lines, and it makes them so much more interesting and adds great depth. I ran Ashley's clean actions, in which I increased the contrast, because to me contrast seems to be really the whole point of a side-lit photo, having your shadows deep and your highlight brilliant. I also took off the sharpening layer copy thing under Ashley's, because I liked it more vague and soft, and it sort of overtexturized her skin.  Of course, I also ran Perfect Portrait 3. Some of it I did not do, for example I did not apply 'whiten teeth' because when I brushed it in it lessened the strength of the shadow (as her mouth is in shadow), and I did not like losing that strength. The same goes for the shadowed eyes, which I did not want brightened. In the end, I still really like the sparkling of the red in her hair in the highlight,which also adds color to the bright side one can look upon in my photo. I love the contrast even more since the actions have been run, and it adds a lot of depth to the photo. I might have rather had the background be entirely black paper or entirely brick wall, one or the other. I feel like either would've been ok, but both is just a little distracting. Also, now, looking back, maybe I could've put the background--including her sweater and everything but her hair and face--in black and white to help focus the photo on the main portrait, which is to say, her face and hair.  Or perhaps I'd even do everything in black and white save for her hair, which is the main color focus of this picture, but then again that might take away from the contrast of her face. Things hide in the shadows beyond the violet mist, but hair sparkles in the soft sunlight.

(I commented on Tyler's)