My photography class centered around doing portraits using what was supposed to be off-camera flash, but ended up being illumination by a central point of light. This is Gerry, one of my fellow students. He most definitely is not one to run around wearing a cowboy hat, but the prop worked out in this case.
Superb portrait with lovely light and shadow Ron, he really looks the part of the stereo typical white American rugged outdoor man portrayed in the Marlboro advertising campaigns of the 1950's to 1990's, fav:)
@lyndemc Thanks Denise. Yeah, I'm not too strong on portraits either. I'm starting to take to it more than I did before, but given a choice I feel more comfortable photographing flamingos and cats.
@redy4et Thanks Elizabeth. Oddly enough we were planning on a secondary light to illuminate the other side when the plan was to use off camera flash, but the single point made such a neat impression (we were tethered to LR, allowing us to see the image immediately on computer) that we decided to go with the one side only for drama.
@pamknowler Thanks Pam. It was funny, only one of the three of us brought a prop, and it was our sole female. And the light was sort of by chance too - a cheap three-dollar souvenir penlight. But it all worked together to make for some great results!
@imnorman Thank you Ian. He didn't think the hat would work on him at all, but the use of the light and shading brought him around. Note that it did NOT work on me at all. Some day I may post the photo of me where I am more comparable to the grim reaper.
@domenicododaro Thanks Dom. Interesting that you mention the catchlight, as we also thought that was lacking somewhat. The angle of the light had to come from above to illuminate the hat, but the result was a shadow across the eyes. There was thought to doing a spot lightening around the right eye and increasing the catchlight effect, but in trying it the result looked rather unrealistic. Maybe a little more work would have brought about a more dramatic effect.
@gilbertwood@pcoulson Thanks Denise and Peter. If it had occurred to me that I'd post this using the Marlboro moniker I might have stuck a cigarette in his mouth! :-) Thanks for the comments.
