Half

​The raw image that became the portrait above.

…or How to Fix A Portrait.  Wandering around firing off your camera without giving your image a lot of thought rarely turns out well but sometimes the circumstances do not allow for a great deal of thought until afterwards when you are sitting down with the image on the computer.  This week I am focusing on photos that I took during the last musical that I directed and this portrait of this young actor is one of them.  As you can see from the image to the right, the picture that came out of the camera was nothing special.  The young lady’s expression was so full of excitement and life, it carried so much anticipation that I really wanted to do something about the fact that I had completely ruined the composition by cutting off part of her face.  I often tell my young actors “if you make a mistake commit to it completely and people will think it is an artistic choice.”  So I decided to follow my own advice and instead of bemoaning the fact that I had ruined what could have been an interesting photograph I committed completely to my mistake and cut her face right in half.  There is something very compelling about that very striking single eye peering out at us from the image and I love how it turned out.  I warmed up the colour temperature and increased the saturation, especially of the greens and that brought out the green in her eyes.  I also increased the values on the black point to give a bit more drama to the lashes around her eye.  I did a little work on some minor skin blemishes because the cropping is so tight and when I was done I was very happy with the way my ‘mistake’ turned out.

-Russell Berg

Friends

The old man turns to look at me from where he sits and from eyes that are hooded with age he starts to smile. It is a gentle and knowing smile, a smile from a man that has grown very comfortable in his own skin. He has paused for the moment in his gentle banter, his back and forth with the woman who is cutting his hair. They have clearly been doing this a long time. This Saturday morning ritual where he comes and sits and she stands and cuts and they both talk. He knows the names of the children who are in pictures pasted on the mirror and she knows exactly how low his hairline should be at the back of his neck so that it does not rub on the collars of his shirts; he hates that. They share a quiet knowing intimacy that has never extended beyond this chair and these Saturday mornings but it is, nevertheless, important for each of them. They are friends.

As a photographer, imposing yourself into these kinds of situations can be intimidating and difficult. I have, however, found that people are usually willing to engage in some conversation and will let you you photograph them. That was sure the case with these two I had to force myself to go in and talk to them but once I did we had a great time and I got some amazing portraits of them. For more on the story of this portrait and another shot from this series check out this post.

-Russell Berg