caged © Lilly Schwartz 2012

The other day when I was going to get my developed pictures I also took some photos on the way. This kid was in the nursery that is behind my house. She reminded me of myself staring longingly through the fence in primary school. For some reason she looked very sad, but once I took the picture and gave her a big smile she also began to smile and then ran off.

The processing on this one gave me a bit of a headache. The problem was to balance the deep shadows and spots of bright sunlight. I think in the end I managed to give it the right feel with a modified wet place preset in Alien Skin Exposure. I removed the platinum tint, the texture and lowered the contrasts a bit. I was shooting with my typical street photography preset, i.e. f/5.6, so the lens blur effect of the wet plate preset also gives this a feeling of wider aperture. I like the outcome.