Most summers, I am fortunate to go back to the East Coast of the United States, where I am from. It is a beautiful part of the world during a very lovely time of year. On this trip, I decided to travel light, bringing only my FujiX100V with a fixed 23 mm lens. It is such a great travel and street photography camera, and it was a good exercise to be limited to just that lens for a time.
This picture was taken at an outdoor musical performance in Putney, Vermont. It was a beautiful summer evening and I noticed the kids dancing and took a few frames of them.
The light was fading, so my shutter speed was not quite fast enough to completely freeze the action. If I had more time to change settings, I would have raised my ISO and tried for a higher shutter speed and longer DOF, but I think the little bit of blur works in this image as it is not about perfection but more about capturing the beauty of the moment with the kids’ innocence, joy and movement.
I like the composition of the kids in the foreground and the house behind them. There were some parked cars nearby, but I was able to crop them out. I processed the image in Lightroom and then recently was going back through my summer photos and uploaded this photo to my phone, brought it into the app “distressed FX,” where I added a slight yellow filter which accentuated to golden light and in Snapseed I lowered the clarity slightly adding a bit more softness.
It’s a bit sad for me that some people assumed the photo to be AI. I guess that was due to my editing, but when the magic of real life starts to look “fake,” that is unfortunate.
What are the TWO most impactful features that make your image a good photograph? Don’t be shy!
The magical golden light of the summer evening and the movement and joy of the children.
If you could make this photo again, what would be the ONE thing you would like to do better or different?
I wonder what it might look like captured from a lower perspective.
Anitra Lavanhar shared this photograph with the FRAMES Facebook Group.
Photographer
Anitra Lavanhar, Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA
Equipment and settings
Fuji X100V
ISO 800, F/2.8, 23 mm, 1/60 sec.
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