“A dappled glint!” is my favourite photo of the week.
Occasionally, things evolve from a basic idea to something that matures nicely – that is what happened here with my photo ‘A Dappled Glint’. Over several years a basic photo became the inspiration for something better.
The original photo was taken at the Whitby Goth Festival in 2018. Hannah, as we discovered was her name, wore a striking costume that was more from the Steampunk genre than Goth. The costume was marked by three syringes adorning a red hat and spikes around her neck. Her eyes, perhaps using contact lenses, were piercing! She was surrounded by photographers as is normally the case at the Whitby festivals, where photographers can often outnumber costumed characters, so I waited patiently to get my few seconds of fame.
My first decision with the resulting image was to convert it to black and white to make her eyes the featured focus spot rather than the red hat. I was pleased with the image and printed a copy out. It then sat in my photo album for 10 months. In February 2019 I was preparing for a Hedon Viewfinders meet-up on shadows and shining a torch through various things from the kitchen and house to see what patterns they made – I had been looking through my album for ideas and to see what shadows photos I already had. Having found a metal fruit bowl made from keys welded together (purchased from a local charity shop), and casting shadows with that, I remembered the album and began experimenting with throwing shadows on the pictures – and suddenly Hannah was back in view!
Using my tripod and extendable arms to hold both the torch and bowl, I lit the Hannah photo to catch the dappled shadow effect and took a photo. I was pleased with the result. But Hannah’s eyes were still black and white. I no longer had the original photo file so I had to creatively add some colour back into the eyes and lips on the new digital photo. I printed it out. The new photo went into the album.
The photo story was finally completed this week (Jan 2025). I wanted some entries for a photography competition, where as part of the judging, the choice of paper it was printed on, would be a factor to be considered. What if I printed the photo on metallic paper to make the colour in the eyes really pop? And that is what I did using Hahnemuhle Photo Rag Metallic. I was delighted with the result. The image looked so much more lively – the paper had made a difference (alas something that you can’t appreciate on a digital platform, but only by seeing and feeling the print!).
I may not win the competition (very unlikely!), but I’ve certainly enjoyed the journey!
