How to make portrait intimidating

MissMadison

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I am taking portraits of individual rugby players and I want to make them look strong, intense and intimidating. Does anyone have tips or suggestions on how to do this when taking the photo and/or when editing in photoshop?
 
Dramatic lighting, posing and lens choice. For this my choice would be a fairly contrasty lighting set-up; I like barn doors left & right, and a 1-2 stop below fill on-axis. Hair light to choice. For posing, shoot from slightly below and have the subject lean toward the camera, I would go with square-on posing (probably) as well. For lens choice I would go fairly wide.
 
If the man's legs are very meaty, concentrate on making his arms look as meaty, with the legs not so much, and vice-versa. After the match he would be dirty and possibly bleeding, so get that.
 
Shoot from a lower than normal portraits camera perspective.
A low perspective makes the subject seem bigger and more powerful.

For pretty much any portrait the subject should lean forward somewhat at the waist.
 
all that they said above..plus
hard lighting, spray on mineral oil and dirt, sharpen image, maybe tone map. have him shouting with spray from his mouth and eyes blazing.
have him do a set of pushups and sit ups to get his veins pulsing.
 

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