It’s time for another round of Getting To The Final Image, where I break down my thought process for you on how I arrived at the final image that I’m happy with. 

The why

My 2 year old daughter is my constant helper, she always seems to be hugging my calf with her little voice pleading to “me help”.  Her absolute favourite thing to help with is eggs – I’ve never seen anyone get as much joy as that girl can get from cracking an egg. I’m sure one day she won’t care if I crack the eggs for her, or if I dare take the whisk out of her hands, so I decided the moment needed to be documented – for both her and me. 

The set up

This series of photos was taken in our kitchen around lunchtime, with her sitting on the counter. There is a large west facing window up and to the right, above the sink. 

The gear

Nikon D750, 24-70 Nikon lens at 24mm.

ISO 1000  f/2.8 1/500

The thought process

I decided to shoot this series overhead so that I could capture what was in the bowl. I also knew she was going to spill the eggs (happens every single time!), and you wouldn’t notice the egg splashes if I shot it straight on. Also, the kitchen was a bit of a disaster, so shooting down allowed me to hide the clutter that I didn’t want included in the frame. 

I started by focusing on the whisk, which still works, and does show some movement, but then decided to back up to share a bit more of a story about what lunch looks like for us. 

Once I included the carton of eggs and the other veggies I felt that it really strengthened the story. I flipped the LCD screen out on my camera , held the camera above my head and waited for the moment. Although all 3 of the bottom images in the collage could have worked, I prefer the far right one because of how she’s connected to the bowl with both hands, and how a bit of her sleeves is showing so that it doesn’t look like floating arms. 

Here’s the final image straight out of camera. 

I applied my standard colour preset, then darkened the shadows a bit more and used a radial filter to pull the highlights down around the edges. I was mostly concerned with the sink pulling the viewer’s eye to it because of the bright highlights, so wanted to make sure I got rid of them. I also cropped in slightly to remove the purple spoon. 

The final image.

Questions? Don’t hesitate to ask in the comments and I’ll answer. 

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