Portraits of a Juggler

Okay, so I shot these about a month ago; but, to be fair, for the last month I have been trying to figure out what to do with them, artistically. These are photos of my wonderful husband (and default photo model), Eric. He's a juggler. He actually made the white juggling balls specifically for this shoot, because I told him I wanted to do a B&W series and the white balls would stand out well and maintain the contrast. These photos clearly show that my initial vision didn't quite pan out like I expected it to, because I decided during editing that I like most of the photos better in color. I have learned from others, and from my own experiences, to be prepared for your initial vision to change. This first photo is one of the first I shot on this walk around downtown. My intent was to show the preparation--after the juggler has pulled out his equipment and is just hanging out on the sidewalk waiting for a good opportunity to put on a show.

The intent with this photo was pretty similar. I liked having the various sizes of his antique juggling clubs in the photo, along with him in his tux. The hat, untied bowtie, and sneakers give him a cool/casual look. I used a couple of layers on low-opacity overlay blend to pump up the contrast (especially the black tux, which can easily look blue in the light). This photo was also recently selected to appear in Lexington's Downtown Gallery Hop on Friday, June 18.

 

I think it's easy to tell what I was going for here--I wanted to capture the movement of the juggling balls. I think the photo turned out well for all my efforts. I was later reminded of the rear-sync flash mode that would have made Eric sharper and more in focus. Next time, I suppose...

 



























This is a composite I did of some rapid-fire shots that I took while I had Eric walk and juggle in front of this part of the building. I really wanted to composite these into one photo, so that you would see three images of Eric in just one shot, but I found out quickly that it's pretty difficult to do that, so this works. I used a curves adjustment and a 20% opacity overlay blend layer to pump up contrast in this photo, as well.

Working for tips on the steps in front of a bar on Short Street. 

Behind the back.

I saw this shot as we were wrapping up and walking back to the car. It was about 6:30, so the sunlight was casting some great shadows on the ground near the Opera House. I added contrast in Lightroom to give the shadow a little more depth and definition.

Another shot I saw on the walk back to the car. This was actually an idea I'd had to begin with, but I almost forgot about it before we went home. Just for fun, I tried this one with super high contrast and a dramatic vignette. Remnants of the street show.

And this last one is just a good shot of my handsome husband. :)