Soon after they crossed the bridge (see previous post), the boys of course did not want to stay on normal land, haha. They immediately headed for the rocks located a few feet into the surf. They spend the next hour or so carefully navigating the oftentimes pointy rocks, traversing them slowly with each strategically placed step. I’m happy to report no broken skin or tears.
For this image, I went with my usual plan of locating myself so that the sun would be behind the kids, reducing squinting, evening the light out on the front side of the kids, and lending some backlight on the hair and shoulders.
There are big problems trying to shoot at the beach (where everything is wide open, no shade) with a digital camera. And I am still learning to deal better with such conditions. However, I have learned to slightly underexpose the skin so that the backlight, especially falling on the skin, doesn’t come out too blown out. I also try to locate the subjects’ heads in front of a darkish area of the background. In this image, blown out hair highlights were not that big a problem, since some clouds were weakening the direct rays of the Florida sun. But, on a clear day it is really important to try to get the heads in front of a darkish area of the background, especially with blonde kids. This keeps the bright highlights from blending into an also bright background.
I used about 8 frames to capture this moment. Most of the time the kids were enjoying themselves and laughing… a series that I felt confident in recording. But for this shot, I had to wait a bit for a lull in their playfulness.
Tech info:
Handheld Fuji S2, 85mm 1.8 lens set to f2.8, and 1/2000th sec. shutter speed, ISO 100, B/W Fine JPG, ORG tone, Standard Sharp.
