In 1992, my photo output dropped. This is one of the few photos I took that year, as far as I can tell. It is a photo of our kids with their cousins. It was taken at Meelup Beach near Dunsborough in Western Australia.
I include it in 50TTL because it is such a jag. When I organised the families into this group, I knew I wanted to take a photo something like this. I did not know it would turn out to look quite so intentional.
To me, it has always looked like a photo taken in front of a studio backdrop. There is a nice even light from the front and a touch of highlights in the hair from the back. As a backdrop, the trees are well enough defined, but properly out of focus. The dark canopy of leaves provides a vignette and frame that pushes the attention onto the family group.
But I would now prefer to think of it the other way around: that a photographer using a studio backdrop might get a photo that looks like this. I was the one taking a photo in natural light, and the studio photographer would be trying to emulate my result. However, I fully admit I was simply lucky enough to have the photographic elements fall together for me at that moment (even if the poses are a bit chaotic).
I also admit that the fortunate quality of this photo probably misled me on many subsequent occasions, when I tried to group people under trees and ended up with nothing like this. I would get photos with dappled light creating unwanted highlights and shadows, or with distracting background features that were too sharp, too bright or too brilliantly coloured.
But I jagged this one.