Hand-held. Available light. Single frame DV image. February, 1999

Someone commented that they liked the photo of the painting of my Dad. Quite a compliment! In fact it's mainly lighting that makes it so appealing. The afternoon light provides the only lighting in this scene and I did nothing to change what I saw.

The bar of shadow across Dad's shoulder and chest is a perfect example of a "Charley Bar", a common lighting technique to add interest to a lighting scheme. In this case, the shadow was of a window frame. A white wall about five feet to the left of frame provides just enough fill light on the shadow side of the face. Although successful, technically the image is somewhat lacking. Handheld at a 60th, it's not very sharp and you can see significant chroma noise in the sweater.