Low light Portrait

[oli murugavel]

Hi... I just waited for a long time to get a nice shot..! Yesterday i just saw my dad reading the news paper at around 5:00hrs in the evening ..! It was about to rain and clouds are so dense.. the light was just going down and down! I took my camera and shot at my dad with this low light environment! Really loved the first picture! Let me know your views!

 

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

Hi... I just waited for a long time to get a nice shot..! Yesterday i just saw my dad reading the news paper at around 5:00hrs in the evening ..! It was about to rain and clouds are so dense.. the light was just going down and down! I took my camera and shot at my dad with this low light environment! Really loved the first picture! Let me know your views!

Hi Oli,

I like the first image a lot. You've chosen an interesting composition, and you've . caught the atmosphere quite well. The light reflected by the newspaper acts as a reflection screen to light up just enough of the face to make it recognizable instead of an anonimous silhouette. The reflection also adds to the atmosphere.

Bart

 

[Rachel Foster]

I love the lighting in the first one.

 

[oli murugavel]

Thanks guys..!

 

[Asher Kelman]

Oli,

The first one is exceptional in immediate impact. Why do you hold back the story behind this image. Where is it taken, what kind of place is this. What's the fellow thinking? Is there anything interesting to help us enjoy more and read your photograph? Also how did you come up with this panoramic view? What went in to your mind that you ended up with this and not something else?

Composition: interesting use of dark space. Left oblique lines of the soft back pull us from the right side and restart the eye on the left. Odd, but it works! The subject's head is in powerful compositional position according to law of thirds.

Lighting is interesting but one could have more light reflecting from paper to face, an excuse for lightening the face a tad.

This picture is not abstract, a pleasing pattern but a narrative written in an image. What's beyond the window, is probably not part of the narrative of the story. If that is the case one might consider blurring the building outside.

The second picture is also pleasing and good in its own right. Again puzzled by the format? Did he have no clothes on? Was the floor not clean? Why the crop or is this stitched?

Asher

 

[Charlotte Thompson]

Haunting
I love all the deep warm red colors and would love to know more like Asher-
the light is especially beautiful and I agree there needs to be a tad more on the face
but the room is full and warm and Oh so interesting!! you must tell us-

Charlotte-

 

[oli murugavel]

Really thanks a lot for your comments! The reason for ending up with is image is... I am a great fan of P.C.Sreeram (Cinematographer here in India). He uses only a small intensity of light. I love all his movies and i have even experimented his shots in my home! So you can have this image as my experiment! The place is my home...! The person who is reading the paper is my dad! Since we are living in a hot country most of the time we wont wear shirt when we stay in home!

And about the panaromic thing....! No its not a panaroma.. I just shot this with a 18mm lens of Nikon D80 and then i cropped the image in photoshop to get even more wide vision. just a photo trick which i implement in every photograph just for a unique view! I am happy that it has worked well.

My dad was just starring on a political news in the paper! So he was so submerged in that .. i got a nice chance to shoot this in a natural way!

And at last about the lighting! I am not happy with the lighting conditions in India! Lighitng is so good in foregin countries! I saw all the photos in this forum. They are well lit. As I watch many foreign movies they made me so passionate about other countries than India! Even the mattepaintings i do.. They wont be in a good standard. I am got up here from my childhood so.. I could only take a photo like this and not at a level of you people do here! I think you are gifted with a well lit country! You may think this is crazy but i feel in the way that India is not lit well... Eventhough the sun is the source for the whole world!

 

[Asher Kelman]

Opening Up the Shadows in just one small part of the picture

............

And at last about the lighting! I am not happy with the lighting conditions in India! Lighitng is so good in foregin countries! I saw all the photos in this forum. They are well lit. As I watch many foreign movies they made me so passionate about other countries than India! Even the mattepaintings i do.. They wont be in a good standard. I am got up here from my childhood so..

Oli,

Thanks for the background. That's interesting and adds to the picture. I am getting to like it even more. Is that the 18mm prime lens or the zoom?

These are reasonably well lit for film or digital. Just one can do some nuancing of the light on his face. It's not unreasonable that there might have been a little more reflection from the whiteness of the paper he's reading. You have choices:

So consider going into into photoshop, duplicate the layer and lighten it to open the shadows and erase everything except the part of the face you want light using an eraser with a soft brush (or do the same with a mask of course and have endless control). Then reduce that layer to the minimum required to look natural. You could do this in countless other ways in 30 seconds.

So therefore there's nothing wrong with the picture really!

To make it easier, use a white card as a reflector or else a small amount of fill flash as part of the set up planning for the picture.

Does this make sense.

Asher