A successful portrait to me is an image that captures personality. With this portrait I wanted to use light to create a specific tone that illustrated character. Where I place my light is crucial to telling a story. Classic portrait lighting has its place but I set out to break away from focusing on what is lit and more of what isn’t lit. The setup was very basic with two speedlites. I wanted a blue rim on his back but I didn’t have a blue filter. I resorted to a trick that I use all the time. The Nikon flashes come with clip-on filters for tungsten and fluorescent color correction. I popped the orange filter on to the main light. I then turned my camera's white balance to tungsten to correct that light and like magic the backlight turns blue. This was a simple quick setup and has become one of my favorite portraits.
Keep it light!