So, Do You Want to be the One...

[ccphoto]

One of our local finest officers who is really quite a nice guy...unless of course you are the "one." Shot during our local Mardi Gras parade celebration.

[ionian]

You've handled the light well, captured a great expression and you've cut him out from a background really well in post. It's a good photo. I have a couple of suggestions, one easy, one a little more complicated:

I'd clone out the dark mark on his thumb - I find it a little distracting because it is central.

As I mentioned above, you've cut him out well but because of the light on his face I'm not sure a flat black background looks natural. I wonder if it might work with a graduated filter in the background, with light coming from the top left corner ( or the other way to juxtapose the light). This is purely down to my personal preference, but I wouldn't have it so even myself.

[bnnrcn]

No, I don't want to be the one.His expression really says that he is a tough guy. I don't shoot portraits, but portrait shooters may ask why you cropped some of his body because as far as I know cropped arms or bodies are not very preferable.

BTW, welcome

[ccphoto]

Mark on the thumb is an easy fix but the BG was so cluttered with construction stuff, nothing other than taking it out completely worked. I am not generally a huge fan of dead black BG's but in this case it did help to convey a sense of "whoa, Nelly, best not cross his path."

Thanks for the welcome: As to the crop, that would generally be true in a formal portrait setting but this is more in a casual informal setting and while I did have some more in the scene, it did nothing to add to the mood. I just used the arm to further emphasize the direction he was looking.

[pnodrog]

Make my day - give me another necklace.

I do not mind the very dark background but a little bit of detail in it if it was relevant could make a very good shot even better.

[Shadowman]

Either he strong armed someone for those beads or he performed a specific task to earn so many, so while I don't want to be the one; I think the right chosen words can make any encounter with this gent most reasonable. Nicely captured.

[ccphoto]

Make my day - give me another necklace.

I do not mind the very dark background but a little bit of detail in it if it was relevant could make a very good shot even better.

It's always a hard call to decide on BG, some BG or no BG. There were three large sheets of tin and a bunch of scaffolding behind him. Even going into extensive luminosity channels, I couldn't get an even enough tonal range to make it work. In the end, I just had to go with "stern" all the way. I was shooting from a Mardi Gras float and didn't much time to do anything but make an exposure calculation and fire two frames.

[chauncey]

We frail to give them adequate thanks.