The Concept: A Suspicious Man Hiding in the Dark
Model Sebasteaan van Arnhem crouches as he portrays a suspicious man hiding behind a wall. This neo 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 developed my own work as a photographer.
The inspiration for my personal work came 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
To light this portrait of a suspicious man hiding in the dark, I used a relatively small light source as key light. I set the key light using a Nikon SB-910 speedlight. I placed the main light to camera’s left (model’s right), slightly above his eye level. My goal when lighting this portrait was to bring a sense of mystery and suspense to the scene. After setting up the key light I mounted a grid on the flash to help focus the light on subject’s face. Later, when posing the subject I was careful to get a bit of the main light onto his left eye.
I wanted the character to look suspicious and sneaky so I directed the model to crouch and hide behind the brick wall. To help set the mood of the scene I asked our stylists to dress the model with a black leather jacket and dark jeans. I staged the scene near a staircase.
Other portraits in this series include: Portrait of a Sin City Detective and Black and White Portrait of Sin City Detective
Model: Sebasteaan van Arnhem