Day 362 - Another happy photographic accident

Add this one to the list of photographs that, at first glance, seem not to have turned out but then, when you look at them more closely, you find that they are better than you could ever have imagined (or planned).

This is Emily. She's skating at the Lady Beaverbrook Rink during one of its daily free skates. There's not much light. Emily is moving pretty quick. And the Olympus is having a mess of trouble adjusting for it all. I set it at the slowest shutter speed that wouldn't show the shake in my hand (1/60th of a second) and opened the aperture up as far as it would go.

It's a recipe for disaster and that's what, at first glance, I thought I had gotten, even after I worked on the picture in iPhoto. Emily is not in focus (the guy in the coat behind her is, however), the contrast is terrible, and there still isn't enough light. I was ready to discard it.

Then I looked at her face. The concentration on it. The peaceful concentration on the act of skating. And I realised that the fuzziness of the image, the low contrast and the darkness all add rather than detract from the effect of the shot. So I kept it. I showed it to Emily and asked her permission to post it here.

"As long as you don't mind me copying it onto my Facebook page," she said. No problem, Emily. Enjoy. And thanks for being a part of another happy photographic accident.