May Storytellers Blog Circle

This post is one of several in a monthly educational blog circle made up of storytelling photographers and Offset artists. After you read how I shot my storytelling image for the month, click to the next artist at the bottom of my post and follow the circle the whole way around. Enjoy!

I thought it would fun to take my new Lensbaby Trio 28 with us to our local fair, because all the fun sights and colors would pair well with this creative and rather unpredictable lens. I wasn't really planning on getting any "important" shots of my boys, because from experience, I know that due to the tight space and the crowds I usually end up with a bunch of the same types of waiting-for-the-ride-to-start shots.

So when this moment presented itself my first thought was- "darn! I should've brought a regular lens." I had to work with what I had though, so I switched the lens to the Sweet setting because it's the most reliable and easy to find focus of the three. (If you're unfamiliar with the Trio, it has three lenses: The Sweet, The Twist, and The Velvet.)

Luckily, there was no one directly behind them, but it was still really crowded. If I moved to the right to eliminate the woman with the black purse, I would have a bar going through my son's head and also have a whole lot of other "stuff", like shapes that weren't part of the story and colors that didn't make sense, in the frame. I was up against a wall here, so there was no moving to the left. With that in mind, I decided to use the woman with the black purse and the boy on the right to frame my boys and their sweet body language in the middle.

Those were my main concerns in framing this little story. But there were a couple more small details I was keeping an eye on as I prepared to make the picture.  I noticed the shadows on the ground and leaned as far back as I could to include more of them. In a perfect world (if there had been no wall behind me) I would've shot it from one or two steps farther back so that the lines in the railing could continue through to the lines in the shadows on the ground. And lastly, (I know! I'm being stingy!)  a little more color in the background would've made this picture really pop for me. But, alas! We can control our own actions, but not every part of the scene unfolding around us. I still think you can tell they are at the fair and I captured their brotherly moment, and those are the most important things.

Don't stop here! Keep the learning going and click on over to read the talented, Nicole Sanchez's blog post. See you next month!

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