This weeks prompt is Catchlights. Catchlights are when a light source creates a wonderful twinkle in the eye.

Catchlights can be natural or artificial, round or square, bright or hardly noticeable. They give the eye dimension and depth.
But what happens to the eye when they are not there – does the absence of a catchlight leave the eye dull and lifeless?  Can a ringflash be used with pet photography?

I love catchlights, as in absolutely LOVE them so I’m very excited about this weeks subject.  You can create catchlights after the shoot using Photoshop or even Lightroom but its easy enough to do it in camera during the session … anyways now let’s take a look at a few examples I have prepared this week.  And the story behind them!

First of all I tried the Orbis Ring Flash.  The first photograph went okay – except I was looking for the ring around the iris.  More practice required.

But then I tried moving him to another location – to use the neutral wall – and I dropped something on him.  And he wasn’t happy.  Whoops.

So we went back to the living room and he decided the session was over for the evening.  Nixie thought it was time to wrestle … there’s always tomorrow right?!

Nixie Lix and I had a chat about posing this morning.  Django was at daycare and so we had the house to ourselves.  Rather than bring out any lighting equipment, I always get good results from Nixie’s eyes and natural light sources.  I don’t have any round windows but the large living room windows give a nice sparkle whether she is looking at the camera or not.

So whilst I didn’t get any portfolio shoots with this weeks theme, it was fun to try out the Orbis.  I’m interested to see if I can get the effect I am looking for with human eyes.

A final note on catchlights, even out in the open you can get them if you subject has a good position to the light source.  Here’s Hazel ..

Project 52 is a circle project so from here, use the following link to hop over and visit Cynthia Wood (Georgian Bay Studios, Toronto, Ontario) and keep visiting the other blogs until you end up back here.

Have a great weekend everyone! x