About the image

I shot this portrait at a “Film Noir and Flapper Girl” workshop in 2019. In this portrait, I was going for broad, flat lighting. I used two identical strobes with footboxes and grids to emit a focused light with no shadows. As you can see, Silvana is lighted evenly; with both strobes at the same power setting. The strobes used were Godox A400s. The lighting ratio is 1:1. My white balance was Auto, but I did minor colour correction with Photoshop. I converted the image to B&W using Nik Software’s Silver Efex app. Using one of the supplied presets, I added a vignetted border to draw more attention to the subject. Silvana is dressed in a Flapper costume, and in this set I wanted to focus on her piercing eyes. To do this, I had her stretch a silk scarf, covering her nose and mouth, but leaving her eyes exposed. The lighting, backdrop, costume, all add to an air of intrigue and mystery. Hence the photo’s title, “Film Noir Eyes”. The BTS photo is a screenshot of a short video I made, showing one of the large softboxes I used.”