NOT wedding related but mood shots

vicious1

vicious1

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Right, this might be a bit too low for some of you but I have to ask anyway.

I have been trying to achieve these nice mood shots where a person or face is lit up by a single flash on one side and everything else fades to black. For the life of me i canon achieve this without resulting to Photoshop and then it looks like utter crap.

I am gonna google borrow a couple of shots to illustrate what i want.

Number one: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3605/3531464792_85a5959e27.jpg something like this but with the face brighter

Number 2: http://www.georgedeloachephotography.com/images/black_and_white_portraits_003.jpg
This is more like it..

Number 3: http://www.georgedeloachephotography.com/images/black_and_white_portraits_017.jpg That one as well.


So how do you active the single light and still get a sharp photo? If i use flash i get a nicely lit scene, even with the flash dialed down. If i use a single light or small apertures my i just done achieve that effect...

Hints?? And please go easy on me :D
 
I'm not an expert by any means and I wouldnt swear to it but i suspect these are lit with a studio light possibly with a snoot- shot against a black backdrop, and exposed for the face.
 
big soft moose said:
I'm not an expert by any means and I wouldnt swear to it but i suspect these are lit with a studio light possibly with a snoot- shot against a black backdrop, and exposed for the face.
Click to expand...

:plus1:
 
So would this be aT ALL achievable with a flash / strobist system? Single flash on a stand with a snoot?
 
Pretty much any shaded light off to the side with the correct exposure should do it, these look mostly like studio type lighting but should be do-able with off camera flash.
 
vicious1 said:
So would this be aT ALL achievable with a flash / strobist system? Single flash on a stand with a snoot?
Click to expand...

Yep (y) But it could also be a small softbox in close

Just make sure the ambient light is so underexposed as to not record, and if you don't have a black background then move your subject away from the background as much as you can too making sure nothing shiny is behind the subject

These could all have been simple single flashguns

DD
 
I had a shot at doing this last night.

If you use Lightroom its fairly easy to recreate.

Most important thing is that you have a RAW file which is correctly exposed for this type of result (ie, where the subject is correctly exposed, and the background is darker). From there, you can post process it to give the desired effect.

I put it into B&W mode
Turned blacks medium-high (40+pts)
fill light to 0

This should get rid of most of the background for you.

If it doesn't then a simple brush in black colour to paint over any bits of light shining through should do the job.

But like I said at the start, the most important bit is having a correctly exposed RAW file to begin with. PPS - this should be easily possible with a single flash unit - just ensure the flash is exposed for the subject, and then dial your camera exposure down to make the background dark
 
Snooted flashgun would work. For some of my coursework I was making all sorts of flash midifiers to get this sort of effect. Try just forming a tunnel of white card around the flash fist, then cutting drinking straws to 1-2 inches long (start longer then trim) and pack them together to modify the flash output.

Also, I suspect everything was done in manual. The camera in manual mode and the flash output power modified also.
 
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