Title • doll face

This shot started out as an attempt to take a fun, wide-angle shot of our youngest, but seems to have turned into a bit of a Hammer House of Horror the-dolls-are-alive type shot or, as my wife put it, "this looks like some sort of spooky Victorian ghost picture". Anyway, intentions aside (and not even mentioning that it looks as though her head has been stuck onto an entirely different photograph, which it hasn't), I thought I'd put it up.

One thing I did learn with this shot: frequently, when I shoot portraits, I convert them to black and white using the channel mixer to extract the red channel – this lightens skin tones and can give quite an ethereal effect. This time though I used it to extract the blue channel and it's made her eyes look very striking. She has quite pale blue eyes and this conversion technique has really highlighted them in a way that I didn't anticipate. I guess, in retrospect, that the outcome is obvious, but it isn't something I'd thought to try previously.

As always, comments please ...

8.10pm on 25/4/05

Canon 20D

EF 17-40 f/4L USM

17mm (27mm equiv.)

f/6.3

1/250

aperture priority

+0.0

evaluative

100

no

RAW

C1 Pro

minor