A darker portrait

DeepSpring · Nov 2, 2007

I had my 430ex with a home made snoot pointed at the face off to camera left about 6 feet up then on camera left right next to model I hung a black jacket to absord the light so it doesn't bounce off my white wall. Infront of the model low I had a home made reflector board and on the background I had 2 work lights shooting through a home made cookie.

Focal length: 50.0mm (35mm equivalent: -2147483648mm)
Exposure time: 0.025 s (1/40)
Aperture: f/7.1
ISO equiv.: 100

All critique about lightign and just in general please. Rip it apart

elsaspet · Nov 2, 2007

This reminds me a lot of one of David William's Masterworks.
The difference was, you lighting didn't wrap around enough.
http://www.davidwilliams-heartworks.com/masterwork.html
You have something going on here. Study David's photographs. See what he's doing with the light.
I think you are close to something really really great.

DeepSpring · Nov 3, 2007

Thank you very much. I'll go check him out.

Chris of Arabia · Nov 3, 2007

My first though on this one is that the contrast needs to come up. The tones in the face particularly are rather flat. I'd look to get a little more light reflected into the shadow half of his face too - not much, but just enough to ensure that you can detect some features there.

nagoshua · Nov 3, 2007

I love the picture, the idea is great, try maybe using a reflector (just grab some white card) to lighten up the shadow on the right hand side... the shadows kinda make his face (and nothing against the model!!) look a little lobsided.

Mike Jordan · Nov 3, 2007

I'm going to go in the other direction... I think you need less light on the shadow side so it is black and the eye isn't reflecting out like that. You are going for a dark subject, so make the dark side dark all the way and just leave the light side to be the main focus point.

Also, I think you need to crop from the bottom a bit. It seems there is too much negative area and cropping just below the string ties would improve the image and focus more on the face.

Mike

oldnavy170 · Nov 3, 2007

I like the "cold" face look in this shot. It goes with the mood of the shot!

DeepSpring · Nov 4, 2007

Thanks everyone for the feedback.

I had experimented with completely blacking out the other side of the face but to me it just looked a little bit strange I think.

BTW this is a self portrait

Mike Jordan · Nov 4, 2007

DeepSpring said:
Thanks everyone for the feedback.

I had experimented with completely blacking out the other side of the face but to me it just looked a little bit strange I think.

BTW this is a self portrait

If you are shooting for yourself, then it makes sense to do it the way you think looks good. If you are shooting for what others think, then sometimes you have to ignore your own feelings about it and go with what others think. Seperating your own feelings can be very hard though.

The reason I don't care for the little bit of light on your left side is that to me it looks strange. Instead of looking at the whole picture, I see this little bit of glint on the right side of the image. I know it has to be an eye but it's lower than the other eye and not in the right place, so my mind keeps trying to clarify what I'm seeing and ignores the rest of the image. That's the type of distraction you don't want... unless of course you meant your left eye to draw attention like that. If so, then it does need a bit more light.

As they say, at least you are thinking out of the box and trying different things. That is always good.

Mike

a5i736 · Nov 4, 2007

Mike Jordan said:
I'm going to go in the other direction... I think you need less light on the shadow side so it is black and the eye isn't reflecting out like that. You are going for a dark subject, so make the dark side dark all the way and just leave the light side to be the main focus point.

I agree I like it dark, I want less definition in the shadow!