Trying some techniques I've seen around the 'net. Bought a $6 set of blinds from Home Depot hung them from the rafters. Built a DiY honeycomb grid/snoot from some black straws and and a cereal box (that took PATIENCE). Positioned the snooted flash behind the blinds. Second strobe (with a blue gel, but you can't tell in this edit) at the background. Small aperture (f/14) and 1/160 to kill all the ambient light (there wasn't much, but enough for auto-focus to work correctly). The flash was triggered with my Cybersyncs (from Paul C. Buff, the Alien Bees guy).
Processed from RAW in CaptureOne 4 (really starting to like that), output to black and white with mid-tone contrast. A little curves and unsharp mask in Photoshop.
Seeing as the scoring has been getting tougher, I will predict a low-to-mid 5 finish. It's a self-portrait (sorry!), and that's VSOP I'm drinking.
post: Well, OK...top 10 works for me. That surprises me a bit...this looks terrible on my laptop, I think it's time for a calibration. Thanks for all the comments and the great finish. I was 6.1-ish last night, I guess some troll-votes must have scrubbed.
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Place: 8 out of 124 Avg (all users): 6.2263 Avg (commenters): 6.5000 Avg (participants): 5.7442 Avg (non-participants): 6.3673 Views since voting: 1804 Views during voting: 325 Votes: 190 Comments: 20 Favorites: 0
Glancing through your shots this one really stood out to me. I love the lighting and the mood. I really like the little reflection in the eyes. Great shot.
great image, doesnt seem to meet the challenge instructions...
I'll have to disagree. "Use light to capture one or more shadows", and I hope that's what I accomplished. I guess I'd be interested to see why you think it doesn't match the challenge.
Nice shot, though perhaps a touch dull. I know that's the intended mood but there's a just too little detail here. I turned the brightness right up to see if it was just my display but still the same. Taking into account the great composition, 6 from me.
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