Still working the flash…

AntoineD

A friend stepping by at my home, only two minutes for a portrait before he left… I shot 5 images then I kept… the very first one

Shot raw with a D200 camera and its deported sb800 plus a 17-55 f2.8 and a lumiquest diffuser on the flash.

There's little more on my weblog.

Bad or good, comments always appreciated

Scott_Quier

I like this portrait, the circle of light is an interesting affect. I don't much care for it, but it does tend to draw your focus right to your friend and maybe that was your intent?

The flash was just a little hot on his forehead.

AntoineD

Scott_Quier wrote:

I like this portrait, the circle of light is an interesting affect. I don't much care for it, but it does tend to draw your focus right to your friend and maybe that was your intent?

Well, it was

I could specify this is no photoshop effect, too: I just focused the flash directly on his head.

Scott_Quier wrote:

The flash was just a little hot on his forehead.

You mean it's kind of burnt or something?
I do not think so, unless you could explain a little more? I'm not sure of what you meant.

Cason

Unless he is talking about the flash reflection off the oil on the forehead. You can heal stroke that.

Scott_Quier

I didn't think this was PS. I figured it for flash effect and it was done very well. The "little hot on his head" was a reference to the spot above his right eye being a bit brighter than the rest of the forehead. I didn't know if that was intended as it's an effect I don't much like.

Looking at this photo again I can see that this was intentional - giving the photo a raw and very strong impact.

The more I look at the photo, the more I like it.

Ted Szukalski

Antoine
you often use landscape orientation for portraits. I wonder why?

This is a good shot, perhaps a touch too much direct flash for my liking but as Scott said it works here well.

AntoineD

RTP wrote:

Unless he is talking about the flash reflection off the oil on the forehead. You can heal stroke that.

Ok, scott & RTP, I now understand what you meant
At first, I didn't get what you meant, I wasn't sure about what was the "forehead".

Ted Szukalski wrote:

Antoine
you often use landscape orientation for portraits. I wonder why?

This is a good shot, perhaps a touch too much direct flash for my liking but as Scott said it works here well.

Landscape… Well, I'm often a total mess at vertical portrait, to my opinion. In that case, it's merely about publishing in my weblog and the landscape format is just better for it.

Besides, I don't really like vertical portraits, but I don't know why
Instead, I'm really into square format portraits, with the hasselblad.