... vernon, "mr. jackson," was performing a renewal ceremony at smith cove, i was serving as driver, gopher, and witness ... after the affair, while the couple, family, and guests were mingling off to the right of the picture, i noticed this man and his son watching the sun set ... "framing" was done even before i brought the camera to my eye, the problem was exposure ... as you can imagine, the shadows in the scene were very, very dark, especially the backs of the man and boy ... i had only my camera's tiny pop-up flash to fill these dark areas ... before taking the picture, i pointed the camera forty-five degrees from the sun and set the shutter/aperture, then turned and snapped the picture, making sure to focus on the man and boy ... all this took only a few seconds ...
... this is the "before" shot ... it is as it came out of the camera ...
... this is the same image, processed in photomatix essentials to create a tone-mapped hdr image, then opened in photoshop to remove a dust spot (in the digital age, sensor cleaning is a new must-learn skill), modify the color saturation, and to isolate the man's shirt so that it could be separately color-corrected ...
... is it of any importance the things i did after i took the picture, absolutely ... but none of those actions would have mattered much if i hadn't seen the picture, pre-visualized it, framed it, and exposed it so that the image would be one capable of being properly processed ...
... of all this, the best remains that this image will always bring to my ears the soft sound of the waves caressing the rugged ironshore, accompaniment to the gentle strength of vernon's voice, "we are gathered here, where the sun meets the sky, and the sky meets the water, and the water meets the land" ...
NIKON D100-SIGMA 18-50@F5.6-1/100th-ISO200