Night Portraits

MrsCue

I had a call from my oldest daughter yesterday, "Mum, can you come over at 8pm and shoot some night portraits for us? We need to use one on a poster for a gig we are doing on Saturday". (My daughter and her friend do a Johnny Cash Tribute).

So off we go to a cobbled street in town using only a street light for my lighting :thumb

Ben LOVES dramatic lighting, he wanted B&W and he doesn't mind grain (easy job for me with high ISO's). The perfect client lol.

Would love to know what you think of the shots I got. I'm pretty pleased with them.

By the way these were hand held because my tripod got on my nerves. And I used my 50mm 1.8.

#1.



#2.



#3.



#4.

Scott_Quier

The only one that doesn't strike a chord with me (yes, pun intended) is #2 and I think it's the background cutting through her head. I would also have liked a little more fill on the shadow side of her face.

Now for the good stuff! WOW these are awesome! I really like the first - I think, cropped appropriately it would make really cool album cover.

#3 is my fave - it has tone, texture, a little tension and, at the same time, a relaxed feel to it. Very nice!

#4 - This is very nice portrait with some well executed loop lighting. A very little fill from camera left would have improved it a touch, but that's just a nit.

Very nice series, thank so much for sharing.

MrsCue

Perhaps a reflector may have helped the fill because the point of these were shadows, shadows and more shadows. Ben is one of these people that loves half the face being in shadow.

It's funny you should say that about the first photograph, that's the exact same thing I said when I took it...album cover material.

I did enjoy taking these. So different for me and so exciting! I love them.

Thanks for the CC Scott I will take your pointers on board for next time, (if there is a next time and if I remember, I have a terrible memory lol).

evoryware

Have to agree with Scott. # 3 is my favorite. Excellent location to shoot these!

Thiago Sigrist

Wow Alison!

I was going to say "hey, great photos, I love this Johnny Cash thing!" then I actually read your post and found out that was exactly the idea. Wow!

The dramatic lighting and the B&W really fit with my idea of the Man in Black.

Excellent photos, I think you did great and must be proud!
Thanks for posting them here!
Take care!

-- thiago

Llywellyn

These are awesome! #1 and #3 definitely resonate the most with me.

I am seriously impressed these were handheld.

k2butter

I really love these photos, I would suggest using a tripod though, if you didn't, cause they have a very slight blur to them that did not look intentional to me... if it was intentional, my bad! Great shots! Love the conversion.