Niall Whelan Photography

Whether working with natural light or studio lights I’ve always been weary of the dark side! Perhaps it’s the association with camera club competitions and the risk of a judge penalizing blocked shadows that led me to be extra careful about filling in shadows somewhat and never clipping the blacks (or highlights for that matter!). I’ve had a break from model photography for the most part of this year, so when I got back in studio this week with Slyph Sia, it was time to push the limits and play with the dark side…

I experimented with a few light modifiers including a broken bowens adapter, a lamp shade, and some garden screens until I found a good combination of dramatic shadows to fill the set. Then I asked Slyph Sia to do her thing, and the results are the images here…

I felt a bit rusty starting this shoot, and certainly experimenting with lights and taking a while to achieve some interesting results made for an awkward initial set. Slyph Sia was very patient and happy to collaborate as I played around with my mad ideas. I think it’s really important to work with creative people who also input into the creative process and help arrive at a place where you can both feel comfortable producing great images (IMHO 🙂 ). I’m really happy with the results and amazed at how productive this short shoot was.

An image is never really ever finished, but part of the process for me is printing and editing to a final print. So I experimented with Canson Baryta Photographique 310gsm and Hahnemühle Fine Art Baryta 325gsm. Having recently “fixed” my epson 3800 printer I was happy with the consistent quality of prints. In the end I was surprised to see the Hahnemühle take preference on these images, but it has been my favourite medium for a while.

In the end I really didn’t push my histogram to block the blacks or the highlights, but I believe the lighting setup gave me plenty of image material to play with in post processing over time and see if I really can embrace the dark side…