October 3, 2009 - What are you willing to give up?

1/30

f4

ISO 800

32mm

RAW

I am so proud of my daughter. Leigh Ann had decided that her beautiful long hair was getting too long and she wanted to get it trimmed to shoulder length. But then my wife asked why stop there? She was only a couple of inches shy of the minimum length required for donations to Locks of Love.

So she agreed. She even went above and beyond and cut off nearly a full foot of hair so she could have the haircut you see in the photo.

I took this using the available light from the same window I use for many of my black and white portraits. Thanks to the image-stabilized lens I used, there wasn't any camera shake in the shot despite the slow 1/30th of a second shutter speed. I also removed a painting from above the couch so there wouldn't be any distractions — just a nice blank wall. This let the viewer's concentration be solely upon Leigh Ann and her hair.

About the only thing I wish I had done differently is to lower my angle of view just a little more to completely get rid of the couch. And it would have also been nice to get Leigh Ann to part her lips a little on her smile. When she shows just a little bit of teeth, her smile really shines.

And as you can tell, she just loves her new hairstyle. Not only that, but she is ecstatic that the hair she cut off is not going to waste!