How to Achieve a Portrait with Dark Contrast
by Angela Healy of Linabell Photography
I used natural light with this image and placed him further away from the window to achieve a more dramatic shadow behind him. I didn’t use a reflector, as I wanted there to be a dark shadow and no fill light, but I had him angled enough towards the window that I would have light in both eyes.
I had a dark background also that faded out when I shot, and he was placed far enough away from there that the camera wasn’t picking any of that up.
Camera Settings:
D700
50mm 1.4
ISO400
f/1.4
1/400s
Setup Diagram:
Editing Steps:
In ACR, I brought down the exposure some, as I had overexposed the highlights. I also bumped up the brightness to about 55 to make the skin a little brighter, and adjusted the contrast to +30 and the clarity to 20. In Photoshop, I added a Levels layer and brought the darks a little darker also, to achieve the blacked out background
And voila!
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