Imperfection

During yesterday's photoshoot with my daughter, I attached the Helios 44m-4 and turned her around with the Sun behind her to try and capture it filtering through the trees for that swirly effect I so enjoy. But it was still too high in the sky, and even with the ND8 covering the lens and the speedlights set to not trigger, the frame came out far too overexposed. Worse still, I noticed a lot of lens flare from the uncoated lens being unceremoniously pointed directly at the Sun and so took only the one picture and went back to our previous position.

The last time I had this much light scatter was an early morning out in Pawnee Rock where the morning Sun flared across the Industar-50 creating what became my daughter's favorite picture of herself; as if she were able to manifest rainbows with her mere presence. So it was that I created again, albeit completely by accident, her newest favorite pictures of herself (Starlord notwithstanding).

I was shocked and pleased to see so much deep color emerge from the overexposed frame when I adjusted it in post. What a wonderful example of the beauty we can find in imperfection.