I have about an hour to kill before heading out on a Sunday afternoon to show a client some houses so I figured I would take a little time to write a blog post. Sometimes I think that is what blog posts are good for, killing time. Not a bad thing at all granted, and for me at least it is better than writing mindless notes in a journal that nobody will ever read. So hey, all good things.
Anyway, this portrait was made in the home studio with a 500w hot lamp and a Mamiya C330 TLR. For me, that is about as complicated as it gets in the studio. If I worked more often indoors I would probably make it a point to educate myself on some more dynamic and complicated home lighting setups up, but for now at this point in my life I'm perfectly happy keeping it simple. I really like the way the grain structure of Ilford HP5 pops just ever so slightly in contrasty studio images. It's strong enough to become a characteristic of the image, but not so strong that it overwhelms the model's facial expression or skin texture. Pretty darn cool if you ask me!