An unusual portrait of Sweetheart

Yesterday evening I finally received the Ricoh GW-3. It is a screw-on lens that widens the Ricoh’s native 28mm lens to a 21mm without hardly any loss of quality.

It is quite heavy but even with the lens attached, one can still shoot with one hand. You lose portability though and the camera tends to slightly flip forward.

For more technical information you can google or read THIS review I picked arbitrarily.

(c) https://havecamerawilltravel.com/photographer/ricoh-wide-conversion-lens-review

I haven’t had much opportunity to use the 21mm yet but enough to know this kind of wide-angle will challenge my creativity like the Ricoh with its 28mm did when I got this camera a few months ago.

It does not seem much, 21mm versus 28mm but it is a huge difference.

This Wednesday afternoon I did some shooting and then had to pick up Sweetheart at her work. I arrived 10′ earlier in order to shoot some images in the pedestrian subway near her work.

Sweetheart left work a little earlier and came down the subway looking for me.
As she started walking towards me I experienced an epiphany.

The dark, gritty, dark tunnel, the light on the end of it and Sweetheart’s silhouette, it all fell together in this image of an angel penetrating the dark underworld to rescue me.

It has always felt like that… Sweetheart not only rescuing me but also liberating me so I can truly be whom I am.

Sweetheart is the best thing that ever happened to me. Sweetheart and my two daughters.

Not your everyday portrait but one filled with symbolism. I believe a good portrait should be just that. It was not staged, I did not count on Sweetheart leaving work earlier.

This portrait of Sweetheart,  in a way, simply happened.

Sweetheart (2016)
Ricoh GR II with GW-3 (21mm)

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