- 100mm f2
- Leading lines
- Sunrise
- sunny
- soft
- Single Shot
- Single Focus Point
- Quiet
- off center
- Natural Light
- Laughing
- Adobe Lightroom CC
- kissing
- Italy
- cuddling
- clear
- city
- Center Framed
- Canon 5D mk II
- calm
- Autofocus
- symmetry
The story behind the image
Directions
Describe how you spoke to your subject(s)
I asked them if they were afraid of heights and if they felt up to sitting on the edge of the deck. They didn’t make me ask twice. I first had them turn around with their backs to the lens, with their legs facing the centre of the bridge, that way they got familiar with it, then very slowly I asked them to turn around and stand dangling with their feet on the gap. The girls were having fun and cuddling even without me saying anything.
What did you say?
Girls, leave your legs loose and let the move naturally and keep cuddling as you are! Perfect, look into each other’s eyes and tell each other how much you love one another, and even go in for a kiss.
Tone of Directions
Quiet, Calm
Composition
In this case it was pretty obvious for me to shoot putting the subject in the middle of the frame. That’s because I wanted both the sky and the canal to be in the shot. Also: with a wider angle it was possible to see the billboard behind them, over the wall of the big pink building, so I tried my best to cut it out the frame without removing so much of the landscape I was trying to catch. This composition also has a lot of leading lines which all point directly to the couple, naturally bringing attention to them.
Compositional Rules
Leading LinesSymmetry
framing
Center FramedWideFull BodyNatural Frames
Focusing
Describe how you spoke to your subject(s)
I always prefer to shoot with a single center focus point even if nobody does that way any more. I know that cameras are great with autofocus but I simply love to choose exactly where to put the focus, and I have when the camera chooses for me!
Focus Mode
Single Shot
Focus POints
Single Focus Point
Focused on
Their heads
Equipment &
Exif
Camera
Lens
Flash
Filter
1/800 @ f/2 ISO100 WB-Auto
The way the EXIF is written out follows the common photographic method (with the inclusion of White Balance at the end). Here it is broken down:
Shutter Speed @ Aperture ISO White Balance.
Light & Weather
The soft light of dawn was what I was looking for in this shot. ideally, I would have liked to arrive at this spot a little earlier so as not to overexpose the sky, but I compensated by shooting slightly underexposed. I wanted a dim light so as to relax the soft colors of the buildings and the colorful shades in the girls’ dresses. Fortunately this spot was amongst the buildings which provided shade for me to shoot in.
Light Type
Natural Light
Light Quality
Soft
Time of day
Sunrise
Weather
ClearSunny
Editing Workflow
How did you edit this image?
The first thing I wanted to do in post-production was to lower the highlights, trying to recover the sky tones, and raise the shadows. I then tried to tone the shadows in a pinky shade, with orange touches, in order to create harmony with the colours of the walls of the buildings in the background. I raised the contrast of the image and added some clarity to bring out the texture of the water ripples and the marble of the bridge
Editing Software
Adobe Lightroom CC
Preset Used
Personal Preset
Challenges
The most difficult thing was to find the confidence to ask the girls to do something potentially dangerous
Solutions
I tried to ensure that it was not a dangerous situation, that there was the right space to lean on, and above all that no one was passing behind them who could accidentally push them
Location
Location Name
Ponte dei Sospiri, Venezia
Location aDDRESS
Piazza San Marco, Venezia VE
Loation Type
City
Country
Italy
of course, i would never have asked if i had seen that the girls were not convinced and relaxed. i only asked them to come up because they were more than happy to do so and because it was a situation where i could keep everything under control. Certainly, shooting at such an early hour in the morning helped us! in this case we were also ‘helped’ by the covid-restrictions situation which did not allow any tourists to go into the city.
if you want to come to Venezia and shoot in this wonderful city i highly recommend getting up well before dawn and hiring a small taxi boat in order to speed up the time and be able to finish before the crowds arrive
