At breakfast, I was delighted how perfectly everyone’s clothing complimented the color scheme of the kitchen. No family can be more perfect than one wearing pink tones in the light of morning in a pale green kitchen as light pours in the window. But as put my camera on the tripod for a longer-than average exposure and crouched down in a corner, I looked around hopelessly for fill light. Darkness from the wall beside me, darkness from the sink, and staircase behind me was dark. This is why some people who own cameras also own lights and reflectors. So here we have one of my favorite families standing still just a bit longer than is comfortable, lit just a bit harshly from what, in the moment, seemed to be a halo of perfect light. A painter— perhaps the tall one on the left— could have done the scene better justice to my feeling at the moment, but a camera can only work with what light the photographer can manipulate into its eye. Chloe’s best smiles were when she was looking into her smallest child’s face, with Charis’s head blocking the light from the window and the light in Chloe’s eyes not the sort a camera can see. Most of the pictures are grainy from low light. There’s a lovely one with Chloe smiling, gazing in to Neil’s eyes, framed by the door, just the two of them, a wall of knives gleaming brighter than their faces, and others of adoring looks but faces in shadow. Here I’ve settled for something in the middle: slightly uncomfortable and posed, with neither gleaming knives nor smiles.
