Floating Aiden

by Sarah Nicole Dailey
(Earlsboro Ok USA)

I was just playing with different settings, practicing - I like to play.

I happened to have a black backdrop, and I thought that desaturation with his dark eyes and hair would look interesting. Dramatic even.

Even the title is just for fun.

What was I hoping to capture? Aiden's a little serious, but mostly, because he's my nephew, I wanted to capture an interesting shot. I had no emotion in mind.

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I love this shot, and can't believe it's been languishing in the inbox for so long!

I think this shows just how powerful vignettes can be in photography.

In essence, a vignette is when the edges of a photo are darkened (or sometimes lightened) in order to "draw" the viewer into the photo.

It works well, and it works really well in Sarah's floating head shot!

The other wonderful aspect about this photo is the angelic look in Aiden's eye's, and the fact that he's looking straight at the camera.

Portraits, of any description, usually work best when there is eye contact. It's not impossible to create a great portrait photo without the eye contact, but it is certainly more common.

If you want to have a go at reproducing a vignette effect on your photos there's an artistic vignette tutorial here. The tutorial is based on wedding photography, but as Sarah has shown here, it can be used in a variety of ways!

Thanks for the submission Sarah,

Darrell.

My son (that's him below) loves F1. He's started his own YouTube channel and would love it if you could take a look at one or two of his videos.
Or, if it hurts your ears as much as it does mine, pass the link on to someone who'll really appreciate it.

(probably someone a lot younger than I am!)

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