August 16, 2009 – Movie night

4 sec

f4.0

ISO 200

25mm

RAW

Last night the girls were crowded around the TV watching Coraline, a claymation movie that reminded me a lot of Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas. Thanks to the spooky nature of the film, my youngest snuggled up to her older sister, and my next youngest grabbed one of her favorite stuffed animals, Bedtime Bear.

I turned out all of the lights and set up the camera on a tripod right beside the TV. I took a bunch of shots (since the TV was putting out varying amounts of light, depending on what was being shown in the movie) in order to find a few goods one where the kids didn't move.

I used a low ISO to avoid noise/grainyness, and purposefully picked a shot that was a little underexposed to reinforce the idea of watching a movie in the dark. Finally, I cropped it to a wide 2 to 1 ratio to emphasize the kids and eliminate most of the distracting background.

In all, I like the photo. But others may think it could have been better if all the girls were sitting side by side. I wasn't going to pose them, however, because I wanted to capture more of their natural tendencies. Some may wonder why my 9-year-old is sitting off by herself on the right. To me, it fits here independent personality perfectly.