John Singer Sargent Might Have Drooled
Tuesday, June 24, 2014
Photography has been in my blood since I
was 16 years old. I never felt I wanted to play football, baseball or any other
manly sports. In short I was a wimp of a young man who became a fairly good
portrait photographer.
I can safely say that I have never wanted
to own a motorcycle, grow a beard or a mustache or buy a red Miata when I
achieved middle age (I opted for something worse a Maserati Biturbo). I have
never really liked beer or to drink just about anything else. In short I have
never sought manly things. No, I do not know how to tie a bow tie.
Ancillary to this is that whenever I have
spotted a beautiful landscape or noticed a glorious sunset I have chosen to snap
it with my brain's camera, its memory. It never runs out of batteries and
exposures go beyond 36.
Today I took some portraits of Caitlin Legault. When I took this one I knew I had a
good portrait. I believe that American painter John Singer Sargent would have
been quite excited at having Caitlin pose for him.
In my search for the real skin tone I set
my Fuji X-E1 to 5800 Kelvin. Alas somehow the camera went back to its automatic
white balance without informing me and the resulting pictures taken with a
studio flash came out so warm that to more or less take them back to some sort
of normality I had to add 50 cyan and 40 yellow. It is the resulting odd colour
that I think conspired in my favour.
