The theme this week is "Love." Right off the bat, I knew I wasn't going to shoot the overly obvious (couples, families, etc). All week, I searched and searched for inspiration. Finally, I decided to play around with the idea of a girl reading a love letter. I shot two interpretations of my love letter concept: joyful and sad. Ultimately, I decided to submit the joyful version as my Fifty-two Frames pick because I didn't want to add too much gloom to the theme.   

       This shot was edited in Lightroom mainly for color purposes. I toned down the greens and added some contrast around her chest area. Thereafter, I added some warmth to the image by playing around with red, orange and yellow hues. Finally, I sharpened her lashes, brow and upper chest area and de-sharpened the green area around her body to add more focus on her upper body. Here's a before and after comparison of the original shot and the processed version. The change is minimal, but it makes such a difference!

        The second shoot was the sad interpretation of the love theme. The girl got letter from her boyfriend that simply read, “I love you forever. I am sorry I cannot love you now.” She knew it was the end of their relationship and was utterly heartbroken that she ripped the letter apart as she began to weep. The torn letter symbolizes her broken heart. Do you see it? This set up involved a black backdrop, a crumpled white sheet, three soft lights and a change of hair, make-up and wardrobe. Again, this was minimally edited in Lightroom for color and clarity purposes.

Which interpretation do you prefer?

Special thank you to the lovely Zaira for being such a sport throughout this six hour shoot.

And a big thank you to Mariela for hairstyling and my sister for being the stand-in MUA for both shoots. 

Additional photos can be seen here.

Photo Specs: 

Poem taken from: Kabhi Kabhi Mera Dil Mein (by Lata Mangeshkar & Mukesh).