Hey guys! We started off 2017 with an amazing senior shoot with New Haven High School senior Cole Ryan. I wanted to share our experience and give you a behind the scenes look at one of my favorite images from Cole's shoot. Cole wanted an edgier/hipster look in his photos so we used some grungier areas of downtown New Haven. While exploring, we came across this wall, and since it's January the plants were dead. It made for the perfect dark scene to grab some dramatic shots. We positioned Cole camera left and lighted the scene using a speedlight with a 12" softbox directed at his face. The light created very dramatic shadows on his right side. In post production, we wanted to create an epic movie feel to the image. I boosted the highlights and dropped the darks way down. Switched up the oranges for a dab brown look. I brought out the texture in the wall behind him, and vignetted the whole image.

We were very happy with the image but wanted to take it a step further. In Photoshop, I added a snowfall overlay, and using several different snow brushes I painted in the blowing snow. The black and white looks dramatic.

Cole has great talent and was awesome to work with. I hope the new year continues like this.

Thanks,

Dave