He sat there alone, drinking his wine and smoking a Cuban cigar. He'd come a long way. Who says a life of crime is without reward? He got the ultimate reward. He had reached the ultimate goal. With head of the Mancini crime family dead in the next room, there was now no one to stand in his way. There was a new leader. One more ruthless than the last. One who's plans would not go undone. The old ways of how this town ran were no more. The new era had begun. This city would be one that obeys out of fear. A fear of what would happen if they didn't do as they were told. Because the city now had a new King...
Shot Set up:
The model is yours truly ;-) The set up was very minimal for this shot. I had the D3 set up on a tripod and the lighting was from a single Nikon SB-28 bounced in an umbrella directly above me on 1/2 power triggered with a Pocket Wizard. My friend helped me out and held the light stand for me since I didn't have a C-stand or boom.
*Post Challenge*
Wow! I can't believe it! After a long time of being just obsessed with my scores, I had turned them off during voting for about the last 7 months of submissions. So to wake up to this is quite a shock!
Thank you all so much for the votes and kind words. I really began to think that I was just never going to get a ribbon. Hey it only took 2 years! I guess I should keep using myself as my own model. Three of my best scores have been with images where I'm in the photo! :-D
My one area of improvement on this image would have been with the cigar. I really, really wanted to light it and try to capture it's glow and maybe some smoke coming from it. However, I took this photo at my parents house and with them being non-smokers, they were going to have none of that in their home. I might go back and photoshop some smoke in to see if I like it.
I thought I'd add my edits here for those who might want to know. (besides the SC)
Crop
Convert to Black and White
Add vignette with a 50% gray Soft Light Layer
Shadows/Highlights
USM
Save for Web
Statistics
Place: 2 out of 170 Avg (all users): 6.9281 Avg (commenters): 8.6667 Avg (participants): 6.7671 Avg (non-participants): 7.0750 Views since voting: 8840 Views during voting: 337 Votes: 153 Comments: 38 Favorites: 19 (view)
thanks alot for the setup photo, really great work, the lighting is perfect, it feels like I'm looking at a movie poster, which is this challenge is all about, tell a story in your photo
Nice lighting and great shadows, maybe the lighted cigar should have added more drama to it ( or maybe he is waiting for someone to light it up! Its a story afterall:))
I love the shadows in this and how they hide his eyes. Kinda like the effect sunglasses have without the pretentiousness of them. Great bw and an excellent example of how a centered composition can work well.
The New King of the City
Add photograph to your favorites
Add photographer to your favorites
Photographer found comment helpful.
