Jerker Andersson's Picture: Composition, Colors, Lighting, Love

Jerker Andersson of Lund, Sweden, wrote of his submission: "Early Fall, 2004. My father-in-law, Håkan, and his first grandchild Elsa have a conversation in the dining room. Over the years since then, my wife Åsa and I have had two more kids, a girl and a boy, and my wife’s father has five grandchildren in all. But this was in the beginning. Sometimes I find it hard to remember what life was like without the kids. Lots of time to spend, I suppose."

Formally this is a great candid—it uses a lighting strategy I've seen before but have never heard a name for. If you have two faces looking at each other, and the main light source is coming from behind one of the people and hence directed at the front of the other face, you can split the background and contrast the lit face with a darker background and the darker face with a lighter background. I know I've seen pros do it on purpose; I imagine Jerker recognized it rather than set it up, but it's marvelously effective here.

I suppose we can't help our personal responses to photographs. I've always been interested in what you might call "the ages of Man"—capital M, meaning humankind. This is a quirky thought, but in some ways I wonder if we sometimes aren't programmed to see people of much different ages as being a little like a different species, slightly alien almost, as a way of protecting ourselves. I've noticed that young, healthy people sometimes treat infirm and decrepit old people a bit like they are something "other"—not people who were once just like them. You can't quite get them to say they'll never be like that, but being honest, aging is alarming, so why think it if you don't have to? In our youth, we're somewhat blind to the inevitability of our aging. Conversely, I've sometimes observed that people have a way to talking about babies as not quite being us yet. Children, too, sometimes.

This is probably the most amateur sort of sociobiology. But it creates the wonderful tension for me here: an infant looking at an adult like she will one day be; a grandparent looking at an infant like he himself once was. And their obvious pleasure and contentment in regarding each other. They recognize each other. And yet I sense a touch of wonder, too, on both sides! Makes me smile.

This rises well above the usual family snapshot. Everything's in perfect balance here, composition, colors, lighting, love. Don't you wish all your family photographs could be this good?

Mike

Book o' the Week

The Atlas of Beauty: Women of the World in 500 Portraits. "Since 2013 photographer Mihaela Noroc has traveled the world with her backpack and camera taking photos of everyday women to showcase the diversity of beauty all around us. The Atlas of Beauty is a collection of her photographs celebrating women from all corners of the world, revealing that beauty is everywhere, and that it comes in many different sizes and colors."

This is a link to Amazon from TOP. The following logo is also a link:

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Jerker Andersson: "Thank you for those kind words! From August 1996 to June of '99 I studied photography as art, full time, at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden. For a few years after that, I made a modest living as a photographer. But I grew tired of having to hunt for every assignment and then hunt the clients to get my money. I studied to become a teacher of the Swedish language for immigrants instead, and I've been working like that on different levels since 2005. Anyway; if I couldn't take decent family pictures, it would be quite embarrassing! Again—thank you!"

Comments

[Eolake Stobblehouse]

“… in some ways I wonder if we sometimes aren't programmed to see people of much different ages as being a little like a different species, slightly alien almost, as a way of protecting ourselves.”

Yes! Thank you. I have thought exactly the same thing. “Old people” are a different kind of people, they always have been old people, and I will never be like them. (I think I’ve even written about it.) So it comes as a great shock to everybody to eventually become older themselves.

Eolake Stobblehouse

[richardp-london]

I wonder if the term "chiaroscuro" might aptly cover this sort of shadow-play counterpointing?

[Arg]

A bit of softness doesn’t hurt photos of this ilk, either.

[Rod S.]

I think your comments here on the lighting strategy and "the ages of Man" concept are interesting, thank you. Yes, the style of this photograph is vaguely familiar but nonetheless striking and effective. The composition is simple and excludes clutter. It also enables us to examine the subjects and their relationship without encountering that slight hindrance that eye contact with one or both usually presents.