My Best Accidental Portrait Photo

I’ve snapped some shots of a few famous people in my day, but this image takes the cake.

While I was following Barry Cooper on his way to be arrested, I accidentally took a photo of him on the wrong lens setting. For the record, I used an Olympus FE-230 set on ‘indoor’ (for lower light environments) instead of ’sport’ (for quick movement and adequate lighting).

The brief image preview in the viewfinder made me curse, thinking I’d wasted some precious memory card space. I readjusted and kept shooting just before putting it into video mode and capturing some footage for YouTube.

It wasn’t until I returned home and adjusted several of the levels that a striking portrait of my subject emerged from a washed out, blurry mess.

I did not touch up this photo other than, as I said, adjusting brightness/contrast and color levels so the environment stood out a bit more. As it turns out, that also made Barry’s tattoos visible, which also made his fingers in front of his face visible. The full thing together looks to me like he’s meditating, clenching a glowing fist in front of his face and radiating white.

I’ve been told that cameras do not lie, but they can be manipulated. Guess I’ll just put this one out there as possibly a little of both. I still insist it’s a spontaneous journalistic effort, accidental or not.

Click for the full image …