Haemy, Drink and Click Portrait – Austin, Texas

For my second of my recent Black and White Drink and Click mini-series, I feature Haemy. I went back and forth between this super contrasty deep blacks version, and a slightly lighter one which I created from the RAW. In the end, I decided to use this straight from camera photo shot with the Olympus PEN-F set to the “MonoProfle 2” mode.

For most of my session with Haemy, I was a VAL (Voice Activated Lightstand) for my friend Steve Wampler. Unlike me, who shoots a mishmash of different subjects, Steve specializes in portraits — sometime really elaborate ones for Fashion Week. He often shoots with off camera strobes. That night, during Drink and Click, I held a mini-softbox Speedlight combo to help direct the light.

I snuck in a few shots, when I saw something interesting. Unlike Steve and his radio controlled flash, I used existing light. Here, Haemy is lit by the light at the top of a stairwell. These extreme shadowy portraits are something new, which can work nicely in monochrome.

I suppose, ideally, the photograph will work better without the cigarette vending machine, which distracts in the monochrome version. With the color below, I think the vending machine adds to the background, though it doesn’t have the mystery and uniqueness of the first photo.