52Frames Negative Space Weekly Photo Challenge

The subject for this 52Frames photo challenge this week was “negative space.” We drove in to town thinking that the National Gallery of Art would have a lot of options. After we parked in our old Capitol Hill neighborhood we walked over to the Capitol grounds. Usually there are a lot of people milling around. But this time there was a solitary young man sitting on the steps. I didn’t think it would ever work for the subject and we moved on to the gallery. And I was right. There were a lot of great photo ops in the art gallery. I have more fun editing the images than taking pictures of them. So I went back to the Capitol steps and starting to change the original image. First it was cropped vertical rather than horizontal, edited to high key, the background layer was made more transparent, and the image of the boy was duplicated and placed on a second layer in the same spot so he would stand out. It was a difficult call this week because there were so many good ideas including a Gardner snake we saw in the neighborhood park! I changed my mind three times and ended up using the Capitol steps over my husband in the stairwell and another young boy painting at a kiosk in the gallery. I also try to gauge the reaction of Instagram followers and they liked the Capitol steps most. This one was a tough call. Sometimes it’s better just to have one choice!