Clint Boge is the former singer for one of my favourite bands, The Butterfly Effect. Currently he splits his time between his new band Like Thieves and his solo work.
This portrait was taken backstage at The Evelyn Hotel right before he went out to perform. It was lit using nothing more than an on camera speed light which was bounced off the wall behind me and the roof. There was one very dim light source already in the room which assisted with the focal points locking on however I had to pretty much ignore all of the warnings the light meter was giving me and just go with my gut here.
I think that it really helped that the walls were painted dark colours in this instance and it probably would have turned out a lot different if the room was brighter.
42mm, 1/60 sec @ f/2.8
Canon 1D3, a 28-70mm f/2.8L and a 580EX Speedlight
Shooting in low light is always a pain. I could never master speedlights. They were always a pain for me to use. I like the way you 'knocked' out the background bringing all the attention on your subject otherwise that very busy wall would have been a real issue.
Thanks Greg.
It wasn't all that difficult to control the background. I just had Clint stand about a meter away from the wall and opened the apeture as wide as it would go, which was f/2.8 in this instance.
Classic on location portraiture tecnique.