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My model is Phillipe, a Belgian juggler. I wasn't sure about the disembodied head at first, but in BW I think it works well.

Critique/comments welcome.

Le Belge





This is Phillipe at work, using mind control on the balls.

Well disembodied head or not I love the first shot. It has that element of mystery about it.

It goes without saying which of the two photographs is the winner here. You used the lighting well to get such a dramatic image. Consider removing some distracting white objects on the left of the subject's face, make it all black. On the other hand, I am not sure if this image will be improved by cropping it square and getting rid of excesive black space so the face becomes even more prominent. It may or may not work. I am curious, what type of lighting did you use? Was it continuous, flash or strobe lighting?

zafra52 wrote:It goes without saying which of the two photographs is the winner here. You used the lighting well to get such a dramatic image. Consider removing some distracting white objects on the left of the subject's face, make it all black. On the other hand, I am not sure if this image will be improved by cropping it square and getting rid of excesive black space so the face becomes even more prominent. It may or may not work. I am curious, what type of lighting did you use? Was it continuous, flash or strobe lighting?

I tried out both suggestions, but I found the square crop was less appealing, probably because he is then looking at the edge of the frame, rather than into emptiness. It's a good suggestion though, I've found myself using a square crop more often recently.

Lighting was a single sb-600 camera right, about 2.4m off the ground. I had another strobe directly above the camera, but I think it was off for this shot. Exposure was 1/125s, f4 ISO800, D300 & 70-200 2.8 @ 170mm. It was so dark in the club (ISO3200 1/4s @ f2.8 ) that I struggled to focus most of the time. I think I need an SU-800 for focus assist.

Doing this shoot I did learn that the Nikon CLS using TTL is great for set-piece shots, but much less useful for stage shows. Part way through the show I changed both strobes to manual mode and found the lighting much more consistent.

Thank you for the info Kevin. I can understand your reasoning against the square crop, but consider removing those distracting bits on the left of the face because the viewer's eyes get drawn to them. Your technique reminds me of one of those Hollywood's glamour photographs of the 20's, and specially of of Charles Boyer.

zafra52 wrote:Thank you for the info Kevin. I can understand your reasoning against the square crop, but consider removing those distracting bits on the left of the face because the viewer's eyes get drawn to them. Your technique reminds me of one of those Hollywood's glamour photographs of the 20's, and specially of of Charles Boyer.

I think you've talked me into it. New version is in the original post. I left the bits in originally because I felt they framed his face and provided a sense of balance, but in the end I think it is a stronger image without them.

zafra52 wrote:Consider removing some distracting white objects on the left of the subject's face, make it all black.

I suspect that would be parts of the subject's hair. As such, I would be tempted to leave them as they are: they're a part of whom this person is.

I too have been thinking of a square crop, but not quite in the manner that is most obvious. This image clearly needs to have the space to camera left to work. To keep this, but also to crop square, you need to crop from the top rh side of this image as well, thus moving his face into the tr corner of the image.

Basically, use the space above the hat as your guide, and crop from the right to leave only a similar amount of space on that side. Now, with that space defined as your top and right edges of the image, you can crop square towards the bottom left.

As a different idea, I would like to see you bring just a very small part of his clothing and body into play: just a wisp, a hint of what he's wearing ... rather than total black. It should just be there - a very small amount of shadow detail.

The only part of the second shot that doesn't work is the red tie. If you got rid of that, he'd look like some sort of mage telling fortunes or casting a spell. Unfortunately it shows through the glass as well.

Originally I wanted some clothing detail, but thought there was none in the image. It turns out there was more than I thought, enough to give some hint of what he was wearing. I'm not sure yet if I like this better than my original version.

Now you're talkin'! You've even managed to capture some separation between the subject and the background.


That is what b&W is all about.

I suspect that would be parts of the subject's hair. As such, I would be tempted to leave them as they are: they're a part of whom this person is.

I meant as you look at the person, which os course it is on his right. However, in the picture you can see it is some background reflection and that is what I wanted removed to have nothing but the head (with hair) and an abosolute black emptiness.