My new favourite photo of Kathryn and how I got it.

A windy day at the bow of the Ruby Princess

It was a formal evening aboard the Ruby Princess and I wanted to take some photos of my wife, Kathryn.  I have many of her, so I thought that today would be good to do something different.  

It was windy out, and the charging ship increased the relative wind speed to near gale proportions.  As we approached the front of the craft, her hair started to fly wildly all about.  This was the place.

On manual exposure mode with a low ISO, I set my 24-70 mm lens to its highest focal length and its lowest aperture (f/4).  The day's brightness required that I shoot at 1/600th of a second, too fast for the external flash I was using.  So I turned on the high-speed-synch (HSS) feature on my camera so the flash would fire continuously through the exposure.

Given the blustery nature of the day, I knew that a single photo wouldn't be enough.  I took quite a few shots; you can see some of them on either side of the central image.  Of them all, one turned out to be particularly good.  I think it makes her look cute.  In fact, it is one of the best photos of her I have ever taken.

I tend to set my flash to underexpose by about two-thirds of a stop that way I don't blow out highlights on the skin.  I find it works well most of the time.  The HSS function only works with particular flash models, so it's not every flash that can do this.  Built-in flashes won't do it at all.

The whole experience was fun.  I got shots of her inside around the Grand Staircase and in a few other places.  I appreciate that she puts up with my suggestions and directions behind the camera.  I just wanted to tell her that and say, "Honey, I love you.  You are as beautiful today as the day I married you, 36 years ago.  What a wonderful partner you are."

Thanks for reading.

Eric Svendsen     www.ericspix.com

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