The Concept: Sin City Old Town Girl
Model Louise Hoppel portrays a Sin City Old Town girl hiding in the dark. This black and white, film noir style portrait is part of the Sin City photo session. The photo session was inspired by the movie Sin City and organized by Megan Alter‘s workshop series. The photo session took place in the Haarlemmerbuurt neighborhood of Amsterdam. As part of Megan’s team of instructors I was responsible for teaching photographic lighting concepts to the participants. In addition to participating as an instructor I had the chance to work as a photographer and to develop my own work.
For my personal work I drew inspiration from the film noir and neo noir cinematic styles. These are characterized by low-key lighting, hard shadows, dark tones and black and white photography. In order to prepare for the photo session I spent some time watching the movies, studying lighting patterns and lighting techniques. In addition, to help develop my ideas I study the characters and their stories in both movies.
Scene and Lighting
For this portrait of a Sin City Old Town girl I staged the scene on the sidewalk near a street corner. There was a street lamp post that provided all the light in the scene. However, the available (artificial) light was not strong enough to create the shadows and the contrast I wanted. So, my solution was to enhance the existent light with that of a flash. In other words, I wanted to simulate hard light streaming from a street lamp. I positioned the key light, a Nikon SB-910 speedlight, on the right-hand side of the model’s face. After positioning the light and tweaking it to my taste the lighting setup was complete. After positioning the light and tweaking it to my taste the lighting setup was complete.
For posing Louise as a Sin City Old Town girl I asked her to lean against the nearby door and bring her chin down a bit as she looked at the camera.
Model: Louise Hoppel