Catchlights ~ February Photo Challenge

A “catchlight’ is simply the highlight of a light source reflected off the surface of the eye. This highlight adds depth and dimension to the eye, and gives the eyes life in a portrait or snapshot.

To read more, check out Digital Photography School, http://www.digital-photography-school.com/an-introduction-to-catchlights

Today's photo challenge theme is "Catchlights". This is a pretty simple, yet wonderful way to improve the photographs you take, whether professionally or for fun. Here's a little sample of two images, one with them, and one without. Now, I think they are both cute images. Good exposure, great expression, but the one of the left just seems to pop more because there is the light in the eyes from the window. The subject was placed with the light to the side of him. On the photo on the right, the light was above and behind the subject. It would have been better to have moved him around to get some better light on his face, but as he was sitting still on this bench, I chose to capture the moment anyway. These just happen to be some images I took of my son last year on his birthday. However, for a client session, I would have positioned my subject better in order to get the best lighting on his little face. I'm always looking for the sparkle in the eyes!