A woman aged 30 and her daughter aged 2 sit on the corner of a white plinth in a studio.
The woman sits on the left, her right knee drawn up so the heel rests on the plinth's top edge, right forearm draped across that shin with the hand hanging loose from the wrist. Her left leg drops to the floor, foot planted. Her torso turns eight degrees toward the child; her face returns to camera. Chin lowered, lips closed, eyes to the lens. Her skin is smooth at the cheeks and forehead with no deep folds at the mouth, faint natural texture and visible pores across the nose and cheekbones, a few fine flyaway hairs lifting from the crown. Oversized white cotton shirt, collar open, sleeves pushed above the elbow with the fabric creased where it was rolled. Light denim torn at the right knee, black canvas high-tops.
Her daughter sits close on the right, her shoulder almost against the woman's raised knee, legs hanging free. Head large relative to the body, no defined neck, rounded cheeks, short dimpled fingers, dark curly hair. She wears her own white shirt — smaller collar, crinkled cotton, sleeves rolled at the wrist — cuffed denim, black high-tops. Both shirts are separately cut and separately creased.
A single hard-edged light sits high to the left and slightly forward. It carves a clear shadow down the right side of the woman's nose and pools a shadow beneath her jaw. It skims the top of her raised knee and leaves the denim below it in shade. It clips the child's left cheek bright and lets the right cheek fall two stops darker. Roughly sixty percent of the frame sits in shadow.
The plinth throws a hard-edged shadow down and to the right across the floor, a defined shape with its own corner. Both figures ground into it. Shadows carry warm brown, never grey.
The wall behind is brightest behind the woman's shoulder and darkens smoothly toward the lower right corner.
Frame from the plinth's front corner to just above her crown. Both faces occupy real area. Photographic, natural skin texture, visible pores.