2009-09-09
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Although the universe is ablaze with more colours than the human eye can detect, we can also learn to see the world in new ways by returning to the roots of the art of photography, to the art of black and white, and other monochromes like sepia (and bi-level). This photo blog celebrates that spectrum of colours ranging from the darkest monochromes to the most brilliant whites, and everything in between.
4 comments:
Very like the young Orson Welles in Citizen Cane, equal drama to the shot. How did you enhance his right eye to be the focal point? I don't think stage lighting could've done that. It most certainly worked!
No post-processing enhancing, just quite traditional portrait lighting carried to an extreme. One of the classical portrait standards is "Rembrandt lighting", defined by a triangle of cheek-and-eye bounded by the shadow of the nose on the dark side of the face.
Actually I'm writing a blog entry, "Variations on Rembrandt", that will talk entirely about that eye/cheek/mouth set of triangles that forms on the dark side. See "Superfrog saves Tokyo" and "Elena" for examples.
I'm fascinated by the eye whites on the eyes, particularly striking on the dark side. Is this from fill light? reflector? post processing (which I do relentlessly on the eyes)? The lighting makes the picture far more dramatic, yet both highlights and darkness also surely hide some of the contorted expressiveness, hinting that there is even more power in the emotional state than we can see.
There's no special treatment of the eyes here; just over-all application of curves to get the contrast I wanted. Mostly the drama comes from lighting: a gridded spotlight from above and to the side, and a small round reflector in the front, which is what shows as catchlight in the eyes.
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