Platon 2

Continuing my quick imitation of Platon’s style, the light and toning emphasizes texture and depth.

Shot with a single 600EX, triggered via TTL with an ST-E3-RT radio trigger, shot through a Qbox 24″ gridded softbox. The light and the camera were both very close, creating the intense falloff and subtle wrap.

The camera, too, was close – 5D Mark III with the gorgeous Sigma 35mm at f/2.8. Over the course of this shoot I went back and forth on whether I should stop down to f/8 or f/11 and keep everything in brutally sharp focus, but of course there was no one optimal setting.

In this case, the subtle blurring of my chest and shoulders help to deepen the image and emphasize my face and hand.

One weird thing, that you only really notice when you enlarge, is a strange halo around my hand, specifically around the knuckles – there’s a thin shadow, and then around that there’s a thin, intense highlight. It’s not a consequence of Clarity in Lightroom (I actually used negative clarity) and even when I turned Sharpening all the way down, it was still there.

It might be a reflection from the wall, but if that were the case, I’d have expected similar illumination around my ear or on my neck.

Curious!