On the Block

This is the product of experimentation and inspiration.

The inspiration comes from a hobbyist photographer from Fine Art Photoblog named Brian Auer. I've been reading his articles and using them for inspiration. He's wrote "16 Inspirational Photography Techniques," which routinely lights the creative powder keg in my head. However, when asked what his weakest links were, he replied using artificial lighting. So I figured I had a flash, why not use it and see what I can come up with.

The then the experiment with the flash began. I was setting up my position, focus and environment and snapping test photos. This is one of the test photos which cut my head off. To my eyes, it seemed like a perfect cut, as if there wasn't a head there to begin with. Then I noticed that the body was slightly ambiguous as to whether is was dorsal or ventral. Finally, the contrast in my underwear with the white shirt was pleasing to the eye, well, considering it was underwear.

So I went with it. I dodged and burned a little but, adjusted with curves and levels. Originally i was going to run with color, but I had black and white to begin with, the yellowish orange seemed quite off. So I grayscaled it and here I am now, posting.