11-06-12 The Right Place At the Right Time

Here's another portrait from the archives (2007). This shot is of Gabe H. and the location is a short distance away from the abandoned farms that I have posted several times in this blog. What made this photo special to me was the subject: Gabe was relaxed, happy and, being a country girl, in her element.The timing was right, too. This is a beautiful field of ready-to-harvest wheat and the setting sun was strong enough to create excellent backlighting. To balance the sunlight, I put the camera in Aperture Priority mode and used a shoot-through umbrella and a Canon flash running off of a Canon IR transmitter. This lighting set-up is very user friendly and does a good job lighting Gabe, especially her eyes. Because South Dakota is a windy place, using an umbrella lighting set-up outside is risky. But on this particular evening it was calm and quiet.I could return to this field on the same date at the same time for a decade and not get the conditions I had on this evening in July. I certainly believe that good timing is the essence of good photography and this photo may be evidence of that.Canon 1D Mark II 1/160s f/4.0 ISO200 59mm