Gellért Gombai, a freelance photographer, captured a striking image of his five-year-old son Lóci lying between two shadows during a family holiday at Lake Balaton in Hungary. The photograph, taken on an iPhone 8, shows the boy on the ground as shadows from a changing room and a building's roof frame him.
A Holiday Moment Turned Art
Gombai, who lives in Budapest with his wife and two children, spends most summers in Alsóörs, a small holiday village on Lake Balaton. “It’s a small holiday village on Lake Balaton, the largest in central Europe, so it’s often referred to as the Hungarian sea,” he says. “We go to the playground and beach most days, swim, and eat beach food, but even when I’m enjoying my holiday, I’m looking out for interesting moments to capture.”
On this particular day, after eating hotdogs for lunch, Gombai took Lóci and his sister Janka to the playground. “Lóci, who was five at the time, was jumping between two shadows – one from a changing room, and the other from a building’s roof,” he says. “I asked him to stay still for a few minutes while I got the shot, and he lay like this on the ground. He’s a big-hearted little clown; I’m so glad he’s my son.”
The Children's Reactions
When Gombai showed the children the photo, “Janka immediately asked me to take the same shot of her, which often happens. Lóci said it looked like he was among mountains, or as though a monster was about to eat him.”
Editing and Interpretation
Gombai applied his phone’s “dramatic cool” filter and made some minor adjustments. “I really liked the slightly metaphysical spaces created by light and shadow,” he says. “If I forget for a moment it’s my son, I see a carefree form lying in the light while the darkness has bitten a large piece out of the space. Even still, it doesn’t feel sad to me. I have the feeling that the light is pushing the darkness apart.”
