ENTRY DESCRIPTION
This photograph was the first in a series-in-progress which studies light on the human figure. This particular photograph was created to alienate the eye while obscuring the rest of the features of interest on the face, while still drawing attention to the beauty of the human form. Notice how peculiar the eye looks alienated from the rest of the face, standing very high upon the head. We are forced to survey its beauty. I paid a lot of attention to the specifics while creating this image, making sure to separate the planes in space in order to not contaminate the background with the keylight. However, in order to keep the image as clean and solid as possible, I figured out that instead of introducing a hair light, I could use the light bouncing off of the background to emphasize the jaw. The beautiful, subtle lines of light that indicate the jawline that you are seeing is completely created by the light from the background. The strip of light stretching up and down her face was created by a small 300watt pepper light with a focal spot attached to the front of it. This specific equipment was necessary to shape the light down to its minutia. Enjoy.

AUTHOR
John Dykstra is a student of photography hailing from Detroit, Michigan, in the midwest of the United States. He was first drawn to photography because of his fascination with light, the way it operates, and our ability to manipulate it in a way that evokes a visceral response. He prefers to shoot landscapes and abstract and surrealistic portraiture, favoring either black and white or subdued color. With 8 years of photographic practice under his belt, John has technical experience ranging from DSLRs to 4×5 field cameras to pinhole camera projects. Pursuing his creative endeavors under the alias ‘Jondy’ as of 2014, Dykstra has plans to undertake numerous creative projects over the next few years. His latest project involves studies of light on the human body in a new collection of fascinating portraits.

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