Canon EOS 60D ,Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS
1/80s f/5.6 at 55.0mm iso3200

San Diego Science Festival

I was helping with a booth for the Protein Data Bank at the San Diego Science Festival, an event at the downtown ballpark that attracts tens of thousands of visitors. One of our activities was to fold the three-dimensional structure of a protein from wire. (The other was building a DNA model from toothpicks and marshmallows.)

While this child was proudly posing with his model for someone else, I quickly snapped this from a different angle. What makes the picture, other than the great smile that says “I’m really pleased with this”, is the superposition with the image of the protein on the computer screen in the background.

This photo incidentally also illustrates a lighting principle often used in posed portraits, called “short lighting”, which is usually more flattering to the subject. It means that the main light is on the side of the face that is away from the camera. Also, the light here was soft and indirect, coming from the area to the right that was beyond the open but covered portion of the grandstand. Soft light means that there is a soft transition rather than a hard line between the light and shadows on a person’s face.