A Singer/Songwriter from LA, whose name I have unfortunately forgotten, tunes his guitar to his harmonica. He took the stage following a rap performance.

Taken at the "Party for Peace" rally in Union Square on 21 September 2006.


Nikon D80
50mm F/1.8 @ F/2
1/60
ISO 200

I used aperture priority because the lighting was changing rapidly. It was about 6:45pm, the last half hour of sunset, and I wanted to pay attention to what I was shooting, not on the ever-changing shutter speed.

I kept the aperture almost wide open because the background was noisy and I needed the image to feel more claustrophobic in order to show his concentration/isolation. However, I couldn't shoot wide at 1.8 because his guitar was facing away from the lens and would have become blurry towards the head. You can already see that the tip is not as sharp as the body.

I used Photoshop CS2's "Calculations," picked the Red and Gray channels, then Overlay as my blending mode at 75% opacity. Overlay allows me to keep the darkest blacks and the brightest whites, delivering an overall "saturated" appearence.