Night Portraits and How I Shot Them

All Photos by Carla Coulson

One of the tough things about being an expat living overseas is that lots of your friends are also expats and there comes a time when they move on. This has happened with many friends here in Paris and there is a mourning as another one goes.

Dear friend and my adorable assistant, Linus, has just left for Australian shores. Just nights before he left he stood in as an extra in a couple of my pics. Handy having a gorgeous assistant! These photos were shot near the Palais Royale at 1am on a cold winter's night and this is how I shot them.

Shooting Details:

I wanted to keep the ambient light of Paris and balance it with a little flash on his face as though he was standing underneath a street light.

My other super assistant held a Nikon speedlight flash with a small softbox high attached to it at a 45 degree angle to Linus. The flash was slaved to the camera with a set of Hahnel Combi remote control and flash trigger.  I was using ISO 2500 (yikes) never used it on my Canon 5D Mark II before but this allowed me to have ambient light and hand hold my camera. I am surprised at the fine grain results considering.

Buon Voyage e tante belle cose!

Carla xx

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