Monday, December 21, 2009

Renaissance Festival Violinist

Here's another photo from the Texas Renaissance Festival. This woman is the violinist for the Gypsy Dancer Theater group that Doug and I photographed throughout the day. She is the mother of the little girl in my last two blog entries. From our vantage point for the performance, there were two good backgrounds to shoot against -- the gold-colored building that the young girl is shot against below and the trees behind one small part of the stage. This shot is the tree background. Decent bokeh here, but it's mostly obscured with my texture work -- three layers: sheet music, warm emulsion, and edge, all masked and blended pretty heavily to get the effect.

Soundtrack: Rufus Wainwright - Want Two

5 comments:

  1. What gorgeous rich colors and tone to this image., and the light is very soft with no deep shadows. I like the inclusion of the music and textures, for something a little different. The way you have placed her in the frame is really nice too, the lines of her arms and the violin and bow make my eye travel all around to see all the details.

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  2. The use of textured background really brings the image forward with even more context than her just playing the violin. I also like the tones within the image, they all seem to blend wonderfully with each other. Good work.

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  3. Love this shot and how you applied the texture. Colors all work well here. As you shoot are you thinking it would work well with a texture and layers, or does it present itself upon review on your computer screen? I guess another way to ask would be "if you don't have a good background working for you, do you then frame the shot knowing you will be applying textures later"?

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  4. Good question, Doug. I think I tend to shoot portraits kind of tight, so sometimes it works against me when I try and apply textures and edges later. Generally, the more space around the subject the better when you add edges and textures. But, yes, in the field I have realized that the background is too busy etc. and composed with the thought of later adding a texture. Or if I know I have a good texture on file that would be appropriate, I'll shoot with that in mind.

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  5. Wow! Great choice on the background. So appropriate for the subject.

    Great work.

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