So, Gato Moteado and I have been having a PM conversation about growth as an artisan and [View all]
photographer. With that conversation in mind I've taken the liberty of downloading one of his images and making a small correction to it. There's not much to pick at in his work but during my classwork in Portrait photography I was taught, no hammered, that there should be only one apparent light source and hence only one catchlight in the subject's eyes and there must be a catchlight. It's a small thing and most people don't notice but it was guaranteed to earn a re-shoot on any classwork.
Below is what I'm talking about.
On the right is the original and in it the reflections of both the main light and the fill light can be seen in the frog's eye. On the left I painted over the fill light reflection in Post. It's a tiny thing and everything else is just about as perfect as anyone could ask; a strong diagonal composition of the perch, great placement of the frog and technically impeccable. It's the kind of composition that flows so naturally that it's not apparent that he did it intentionally.
It's the small things that help us grow past whatever plateau of skill we achieve and I look forward to Gato's critique on my work when I get around to shooting something new which I hope to do this week.
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