Low-Key, Hard-light Character Portrait

[canonrebel]

Caonon A-1 | 135mm |
Photo Lights w/400 blue filter (Does anyone remember the old "Photo Light bulbs?)
HP Scanner

 

[pilgrim]

What are all those little things over the picture? Dust and what not on the lens?
His face seems a little too bright for my liking to..

 

[canonrebel]

What are all those little things over the picture? Dust and what not on the lens?
His face seems a little too bright for my liking to..

Pilgrim, thanx for your comments. It's lowkey/high contrast. Face is meant to be bright. There's no dust when viewed on my monitor. But the dust your're seeing must come from the OLD pic and from being scanned on an OLD scanner. The film was developed and processed at fotomat 15 years ago.

The pic has no post processing (hence the rough complexion and the dust). I wanted it to be a character portrait and so texture and complexion blemishes were allowed.

I'm digging out some of my old stuff to review. Old stuff from back when the camera was king and photoshop wasn't even heard of.

 

[drdan]

I think you can keep the look you are going for and reduce the hotspots slightly. I spent a couple of minutes in PS with and don't know much about skin tones. Here is what I got with some quick amateur editing. I tried to not change it very much.

It's a very strong portrait I think.

 

[canonrebel]

drdan, Thanks for the kind comments and the great advice. I like your edit very much. It is definitely better than the original and the character which was my original goal was left intact.