September 2024 – Image of the month

September 2024 – Image of the month. As we enter the later part of the year, I like to review the images I’ve captured and think about what I’d like to add to my portfolio. Going over a batch of my favorite photos, I was struck again by how, given time, images take on a life of their own once viewed weeks or months later. The great photographer Garry Winogrand always left his images months and years later before, and he had hundreds of undeveloped rolls when he passed away in 1984.

My favorite images are shot through frames, glass, and reflections. This image of the month was photographed at a lovely venue, The Red Berry Estate. There’s a particular mystery to the image, and it has a timeless quality. It could’ve been captured in the 1950s on Kodachrome! She was a guest just about to leave the party, and of course, she caught my eye in that red dress. Part of the lights from the dance floor caught her face in the glass window, making it all the more enjoyable.

From a technical point of view, I framed the 35mm frame down the middle, partly because I wanted the viewer to see her clearly, and I had little time to see what was around the corner beyond what I could see. I framed it to see a figure-to-ground relationship (FGR), a sense of balance with her gazing direction, that triangle shape of her dress, which is fun, and the negative space on the right that balances the composition with the two vertical poles on the left. All shot on a Leica M11 + 50 cron and run through Nik Collection Color Effex. Until next month!