Aimer

There are some classic shots in photography that you always end up wanting to try them yourself too. The "Ring shadow on a book" is a classic one and this one is my interpretation.

I shot this photo in my earlier days of photography. It is mostly popular amongst the "female viewers", probably because it is a "romantic" shot (or maybe it's because the guys don't want to admit it haha).
When I first came accross this shot on the internet, I liked the idea of it so I tried to experiment and do the shot myself one boring day. I used my old engagement ring (it's still useful apparently, even after break-up hehe) and a french dictionary.
I positionned the ring on the page with the definition of "Aimer" which means "to love" to give it a nice touch.
Only natural lighting was used, with sunlight coming through my window.

I shot this at 1/250 sec, f/5 and ISO 200. I chose the take the photo diagonally to give it more "dynamism".
The photo was later post-processed to adjust the colors and the contrast to make the "heart-shadow" pop out a bit more.

Overall, I have mixed feelings about the outcome. First I am happy because It turned out the way I wanted it to be and it is different from what you usually see on internet. But I am upset because I did not pay attention enough to the framing (The word "Aimer" is cut..). Also I think I have overdone it while postprocessing because it is a bit darker than I wanted it to be. I guess I'll have to work on it once more at least for the colors!
This has taught me valuable lessons as to always pay attention to the framing and look at the four corners of the image before pressing that shutter.

"Aimer", a beautiful word.. so go out and spread some love to the people around you, it's free and makes you feel great!