Noir

[The Pariah]

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[boyfalldown]

They're lovely photos. But the lighting doesn't say 'Noir' to me. Although they are almost typical scenes one may expect from the genre not being lit right doesn't really give the sense of menace Noir should. For Noir to work you really need to be lighting each element individually and using that to draw ones eye around the photo. As pictures they stand on their own well, but with they haven't matched the title for me.

 

[Pookeyhead]

Styling has let these down. The whole film noir thing is ruined by her clothes and styling. And is that a modern watch on his wrist?.. image is too small to be sure. And the phone isn't plugged into anything. Sound picky, but people notice these things, and it ruins the ability to suspend disbelief, and makes it looks like a contrived, amateur shot, rather than a still from a movie... which would have helped a great deal here. This looks like a carefully posed, set tableau... but without the lighting and styling needed, neither would work actually.

That processing doesn't lend itself well to the theme either. You seem to have one processing style when looking at other stuff you've done... it's all very similar. The problem with that is is doesn't work with everything equally.

These would be so much better if you lit it rather than use available light. (if you have lit these.. the fact that it was lit to look like available light hasn't helped) Look how movies of this genre are lit.... you'll get some pointers that will help convey the mood your title clearly shows you're aiming for.

 

[jakeblu]

I don't have a problem per se with your processing, it works really well in some of your images but it doesn't work very well with these. I'm not an expert on lighting like the previous posters but I clicked into this thread expecting to see your usually standard of photographs and I thought they looked a bit flat, sorry.