"One thing that I love about photography is how a single photo can inspire me to the point that I rethink every picture I've taken and about everything I plan on doing ahead. This photo made me understand why another one I had made and put on my Flickr the week before didn't fully sit well with me—it looked cool but it says nothing I want my work to say, in fact, it contradicted it.
I am a navel-gazer and often a big picture thinker as many artists are. So it is important to me that my work reflects my ideas and feelings about life. Someone commented on this picture with a single word: love. I concur. To me this picture is love, and I realize that that is what I want my photography to convey and inspire. And conceptually, the transience of our human experience. This single moment can never be reclaimed, it was over in an instant and in a world without photographs it would be as if it never happened. For me this photo is a metaphor for a life I live deeply which will leave no trace in the grand scheme of things—a fact that I am at peace with.
On the more technical end of things—most of my work consists of portraits (almost all in 35mm focal length which is unconventional for portraits and sometimes the distortion is too severe, but I find it allows a closeness to my subjects and an immediacy that I can't get at 85 or even 50mm). Most of the time, I am very particular about my focusing and the nearest eye must be in focus and preferably tack sharp. But this is one of those portraits in which not only is perfect focus unnecessary, it would detract from its meaning and beauty.
Finally, this was shot for the sheer joy of making images. Because of the special connection I enjoy with my subject here, I am not sure that I could have made this image with anyone else really. Realizing this makes me rethink how I relate to clients—what can I do to establish the right mood with someone I just met? A single photo, captured at 1/640th of a second, is really challenging me to think hard about some things. I realize even more now that what is more essential than honing technical skill is learning how to be better at human psychology." -Frank Multari
EXIF:
Nikon D610
35mm 1.4 DGM
Aperture: 1.4
Shutter: 1/640
ISO: 100