Putting Joe's Training To Work

So, after learning lots of cool stuff at the DLWS in Vermont, this weekend I pulled out a strobe with a softbox to try one of the portrait lighting techniques I learned from Joe McNally. The technique gives a dramatic light for male portraits that fades to solid black. Here's a portrait of my father-in-law (click on the photo to see a larger version) taken using that black Westcott Illuminator background (the same one I used for my daisy and calla lilly shots) using a single 2x3 softbox on a Bogen light stand. I shot tethered (to my laptop) using the new Nikon Camera Control software ($79) so I could see the shots full screen so I could tweak the lighting.