Dark background experiment

claydough

I am very new to photography and am still learning, so be gentle. My son (6 years old) agreed to model for me. I took these with my Canon 20D and the Canon 50mm 1.8 II. I put him on a stool and side lit him with a normal 60 watt daylight bulb. I set the camera for spot metering to meter just for his face instead of the background (which was a black cloth). I am looking for any critiques or suggestions.

Pic #1. This is more front-lit, with a soft focus added in PP with nik Color Efex.




Pic #2. This is more side lit with very little PP.


Thanks!

wxwax

I think you did a super job, clay. I think the blur's a little obvious in the first, but's a matter of personal taste. In the second, the absolute black on half of his face doesn't work all that well for me.

Have you considered hanging a white sheet just out of frame on the left? That way you'd get a wee bit of reflected light, and his left side wouldn't be pitch black.

Nice job, just goes to show you don't have to spend a lot of money to get worthwhile results. Oh, and he's a great looking kid, a good model.

System

I agree with sid's critique and his praise-

nice job!-

george

claydough

I agree as well. I was looking through some of the othe shots from the same session and found one where there was some slight light on the dark side and it looked much better.

Thanks so much for the critique.

--Clay