Personal moments are always the most memorable.
Kindera wanted a photograph of her and her mother, 88 at the time of this photograph. A recent trip to the family farm in Iowa gave us such an opportunity.
Her mom – Mrs. Speas – is a gardener, and I wanted to incorporate some of that color in the image. I decided to place a chair in front of that wonderful color, and placed both there. They were in shade, so a small speedlight was placed in a medium-sized soft box, camera left, to brighten them and create a direction to the light.
Environmental portraits in my opinion cry for wide aperture, so I shot this with my 85mm at f/4 (I normally would go with a wider aperture, but it’s difficult to keep both in the plane of focus so there is definitely a tradeoff). The bokeh of the background is affected by the texture I used in post processing the image (bokeh is the out-of-focus rendering the lens provides. My 85mm GM is know for its bokeh, so I sacrificed this slightly in post for the color rendering. Tradeoffs.)
I wanted deep, rich color for this – hence the texture and associated post processing.
I love rural settings, and a farm is right up my alley.