External flash hand-held between the pages of the book (which has desert recipes btw) and fired during a long exposure in the dark.
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Wow, 4th place... fantastic! I now have two top 5's, both of them with the same method of firing the hand-held flash in the dark (poor man's remote controlled flash :). Maybe I should do that more.
Thank you VERY much for the votes, and especially for the great comments. I have had this idea for a while, and was waiting for a good challenge for it (I also want to mention Scalvert's Light Reading image, which is very different in mood and lighting, but provided some indirect inspiration).
The original idea was to have the book shine more, maybe "glow", but couldn't really achieve that. I also wanted just the face and the book visible, but had to go with a white t-shirt as otherwise the book was being lost in the black background. Overall I liked the results, and I am thrilled with it's score and placing. My personal conclusion: lighting is the most important thing in photography, but you don't always need an expensive set-up to make it work!
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Place: 4 out of 199 Avg (all users): 6.6308 Avg (commenters): 7.7857 Avg (participants): 6.7273 Avg (non-participants): 6.5975 Views since voting: 3697 Views during voting: 328 Votes: 214 Comments: 23 Favorites: 6 (view)
Damnit...I had the same idea and never got around to doing it (Translated into--->LAZY) Good job, and I too think this met the challenge far better than the top 3
I really like this shot - the title makes it perfect for the image you created. Nice contrast between the light and dark, and the man's face is hard to ignore - he seems so interested in finding the way by reading the letters. i just can't explain it, but this is my favorite pick of them all!
Honestly not sure I understand the title and picture totally with out reading what you have to say about it - but I do like the picture. Perhaps he's a troop overseas and the letters he sends and receives are his own personal light in the darkness, or something to that effect? Regardless - I do like the picture!
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