Capturing Elegance and Emotion

This portrait, titled “Dreaming in Shadows,” is an exploration of mood, light, and the silent stories captured in a single frame. I photographed this image with my Canon 5D Mark II and a Tamron 70-200mm lens, a setup that allowed me to zoom in and capture the delicate details and nuances of the moment. The longer focal length helped to compress the background, making the model the absolute focal point of the shot.

For lighting, I chose strobes to create a dramatic and controlled light source. The strobe lighting not only enhanced the textures — from the softness of the velvet upholstery to the intricacy of the fishnet gloves — but also sculpted the model’s features with a sharp contrast that a more diffused light wouldn’t have achieved. I wanted to create a high-key effect that highlighted her expression, lending an ethereal and almost cinematic quality to the photograph.