Did you guess what this is a pic­ture of and where it is? Read more details below the pic­tures.

 

 

 

If you guessed Abra­ham Lin­col­n’s eye­ball, you are cor­rect. You can hike up very close under­neath Mount Rush­more and take pic­tures from a dif­fer­ent point of view, one that brings out the detail in this enour­mous sculp­ture.

I find the impor­tance of a “catch light” in the eyes trans­lates to all forms of art. The artist here took great pains to carve out the eyes in a way that left a block of white gran­ite to cre­ate the illu­sion of a reflect­ed light that makes eyes come alive, a very impor­tant fea­ture to con­sid­er in por­trait or ani­mal pho­tog­ra­phy.

It was­n’t quite the right time of day to get that Rem­brandt light­ing por­trait pho­tog­ra­phers strive for. They all have racoon eyes or look like they are wear­ing masks. Next time.

Mount Rush­more is a US Nation­al Memo­r­i­al in South Dako­ta. It is worth a vis­it along with many nat­ur­al and man-made curiosi­ties in that area of the coun­try.