Low key Self Portrait C & C

BIRDCAGE1

Hi All,
I am a long time watcher of these forums, but have not posted much. I'm a keen amateur willing to learn as much as I can and continually better my skills. Anyway I have being trying to get my head around low key portraits recently and I would love any comments of this picture of myself, both good and more then likely not so good. It was taken with a 450D + 28 -135 lens at a focal length of 50mm and an f stop of I think around f6. I had a 430EXII Speedlite off to right in manual at a power setting of 1/64.

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slang61

Image not showing......

BIRDCAGE1

not sure what I'm doing wrong. I have the image hosted on my flickr account, I've copy and pasted the link into my opening post????

slang61

you have to click on the share button and copy and paste the HTML/BBC code...
make sure BBC code is highlighted....
this works for me anyway..

BIRDCAGE1

thanks slang61 - I was just copying the actual link after I clicked on share.

inkedpt

hi!

the light and shadow split in your face is great, sadly the forehead is off center, you can try and move the light source slightly up, it's all about experimenting.

The shirt's collar creates a harsh shadow on the neck which is not pleasant to the eye.

Overall is nice selfy.

cheers

humberklog

It's a little rapey. But not in the sexy way.

I think it's that it might be because you're looking at what you're shooting from an odd angle.

You need to shoot someone other than yourself or concentrate on looking towards the camera.

thebaz

the image is too dark and lacks emotion - practise as Humber says , and forget the b&w conversion - much easier to learn on colour images (for digital

BIRDCAGE1

Thanks for all the comments guys, I really appreciate it. I normally use one of my kids or my wife as a stand in model, but I was home alone over the weekend and was eager to get some practice in.
@humberklog - I'm intrigued by your comment on the odd angle. The setup for the shot was me sitting on a chair in the middle of my kitchen with the camera on a tripod about 3 feet directly in front of me and I'm hand holding the Speedlite at arms length out to the right.
@thebaz - I'll definitely take on board not converting to B&W straight away. There probably is a certain (unintended) emotion there, as humberklog mentioned.

My aim was to get a better understanding of how to achieve a low key image and I have definitely learnt a lot, not least is that I am much more comfortable on the other side of the lens.

... for this image I completely removed all the ambient light by using a shutter speed of 1/125, should this always be the case when taking low key images?

magicbastarder

humberklog wrote: »

It's a little rapey. But not in the sexy way.

HK is the boards expert on sexy rapey photos.

kelly1

If I could make a few comments...

- The light is too contrasty for my linking. I take it you didn't use a modifier?

- The lack of catch-light makes the visible eye look dead

- I'd prefer to see some light on the dark side of your face.

- I think the light would be better a bit higher up.

AnCatDubh

I think you need something to pop a tincy bit of light onto your right hand side (our viewing left, the dark bit).

As it stands this area (your right, our left) looks completely descended into the shadows, and unless you are the incarnation of those odd drawings that are someones side profile as well as their front facing profile which completely mess with your head, then you've dropped too much light off your right (our viewing left).

You could try something to reflect a little of the light from your flash or another source of light to your right (our viewing left).

These setups can work very well particularly in b/w with a good measure of contrast, but I think you've fallen a little short in terms that you've lit one side of the profile but the other completely gets lost.

That, just my humble opinion.