One downside of my very long series, like the one I just finished for Paris, is that I fall behind on coverage of other photographic events. While I talk about trips from a couple of years ago, I continue to steadily make new photos.

With the Paris coverage completed, I’ll cover more recent events in and around Austin. A few days before Halloween, Precision Camera had a cosplay portrait event, where I shot a very authentic-looking but tall Jack Sparrow.

Precision Camera set up a black background with nice lighting, including red gel from the right. I used the newest AI tools from Capture One to separate the foreground portrait from the background, and I enhanced both separately. What resulted was this striking portrait on a pure black background.

It reminds me of a series I did for many years called Halloween Portraits on 6th Street. Not having a studio environment, those 6th Street Portraits were considerably more work with much more processing. Today’s picture benefits from better lighting, a controlled studio environment, and superior equipment.

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