Not long ago I was flipping through a fashion magazine... I read them for the pictures not the articles. I came across this amazing black and white image, I was stunned, taken aback.. and suddenly completely inspired. I loved the look, the feel and the raw emotion of it. So I set out to start adding this look and feel to my shoots.
Its a very basic setup. AB800 7" reflector up very high and cam left. I place the strobe and shift it and watch the shadow, to me its just as much about where the shadow is and how it looks as it is also how it falls on the model.
I normally shoot these high contrast images with props or having the models do something crazy, to help bring the rawness even further out of the black and white image. This day I was short on props and then I looked at Sonya, who is slightly vertically challenged :) , the all black and the "this could be a black tie affair" look and thought ... an umbrella is the obvious choice here. I ran out to the garage handed it to her and said, its a "cane" lean on it! :)
