When I told my husband this week’s challenge is catchlights he replied, “What are catchlights?” “The reflection of the source light in your subjects eyes,” was not enough for him. Dictionary.com defines it this way:
| Main Entry: | catchlight |
| Part of Speech: | n |
| Definition: | a gleam of reflected light in the object of a photograph, esp. in a person’s eye |
I really am not sure of a better way to explain catchlights but I did find a great blog at Paint the Moon about them and how to get them. You can check that out >here<.
I dragged my sister in law to the park with me and my kids and took some pictures of her. I really liked Annie’s suggestion at Paint the Moon about using a marble to find the light and will be implementing that trick as soon as we get home and I can get a marble. I honestly haven’t paid much attention to catchlights in my subjects eyes or not, but I can tell when, in a picture, everything is right but something is wrong…..apparently, it usually is the catchlights and I need to start paying more attention to it. Just yesterday, I noticed the lack of catchlights in the eyes of the children in a commercial for a popular children’s online clothing outlet. The videography was beautiful; stunning, some might say. But their eyes didn’t sparkle, they didn’t draw you in. It was very disappointing.
But, I also noticed a lack of catchlights in the eyes of characters in a favorite television show of my husband and I, and it worked because it was used to help create the dark mood of the program. I just find it interesting that the smallest detail, like catchlights, can help or hurt the overall affect of an image.
I was hoping to have an opportunity to photograph one of my nieces for this weeks challenge since we are in their neck of the woods but I got sick toward the end of the week and didn’t want to risk making any of them sick, too. I am using images I took earlier in the week of my sister in law instead. Thank God I took those! We all went to the park and I took my camera to take the pictures just in case I wasn’t able to get others later in the week – boy am I glad I did that! We took the pictures just before the twilight hour and I used off camera flash which worked to make her the spotlight of the image and created a nice mood around her. I was pleased with the overall results. I hope you like them.
