To Live So As To Dream
A lovely luminous portrait of a young man seemingly day dreaming.
To live so as to dream is a beautiful concept that was, very much, in my mind when I made these photos during a low light portrait photography workshop I ran in the suburb of Eltham on the outskirts of Melbourne, Australia.
So too was the character Aragorn from J.R.R. Tolkien’s classic fantasy novel The Lord Of The Rings.
Let Your Mind Wander
The late autumn day provided soft, flattering light that was ideal for making beautiful portrait photos.
I wanted this particular image to explore the notion of daydreaming, an important and healing process that we seem to discard as we get older.
As part of finding time for oneself I think it’s wise to set aside time to daydream, ideally outside in the natural world.
To convey the notion of daydreaming I photographed from a birds eye viewpoint and asked my model to look up and beyond the camera.
I particularly love the luminous quality of the light on his face which has been beautifully emphasized by the black and white rendering of the image.
The photo was made with a Canon 5D mark II camera and Canon 24-105 mm f/4 L series USM lens at a focal length of 75 mm. The exposure details were 1/320 second at an aperture of f/4 and at ISO 400.
A close up portrait of a young man alongside a statue in Eltham, Australia.
Dreaming Of Strider
I’m a huge fan of the Lord Of The Rings, both the books by J.R.R. Tolkien and the motion picture adaption by Sir Peter Jackson.
This statue reminds me of some of the, albeit larger, statues in those monumental films. All I needed was Aragorn, whom I always preferred in his Strider guise, to bring the composition together.
My model played the part admirably. I was really happy with his intense gaze, which I feel adds a dramatic edge to the image.
I love to take a walk around the edge of the day. I’m often nearing home in the gloom when I imagine myself, as Strider, patrolling the wild beyond the last homely house known, in the common tongue, as Rivendell.
It’s good to daydream. Is it not?
