A night session with an aspiring model. He wanted an edgy night mood in this session (he also wore a black leather jacket in other shots).
In this shot, we both liked the shadows and the edge light on his face. The blue-lit building in the background gave it an urban, sophisticated feel and we dropped our gear on the spot to get this as a background. A number of test shots to get the right exposure and shadows- so what you see here was fully intended. However, CC is by all means welcomed.
I love this shot. Very good lighting on his face and good mix for the background lights. From your comments, I believe you hit the goal very well. How many shots did you take to get the exposure adjusted for the final result?
Thank you, Steve. For this particular scene, it probably took two or three. And that's due to the various poses my model was striking- he's got a good feel for himself and what effect he wanted- a pleasure to shoot with.
We played around with posing, the background and of course the edge lighting and shadows. It wasn't a scripted session so we tried out some poses and lighting arrangements. For this shot, he was looking at the bounce umbrella, while another one was at roughly a 45 degree angle coming from his right (I'm still learning the 'camera left', etc, terminology in describing the setup...).
A funny note- he may have been helping keep the umbrella upright here with his left foot.... we were shooting from the Highline in NYC, and we were exposed to a breee coming from behing him. I don't carry sandbags, but we tried to rely on his bag and my camera bag to help- to no avail at times.He pulled double duty as both model and photog's assistant. We had a good laugh and it was a great experience with him.
With the understanding that you need to build a rapport with your subject, we laughed a lot here, talked life and ducked into a coffee shop for hot chocolate on the way to the subway. This young man is an achiever in life, and wants to model along with his life / career goal of medical school. He's going to be one of society's gems, and he's humble as well. Getting to know our subjects is essential to make it a fun and rewarding experience.... ok, sorry for the ramble. lol