12 STORY BEHIND THE STILL
Eric Mwazo shares an eye-catching portrait
PHOTOGRAPHER’S NAME: Eric Mwazo WEBSITE: www.behance.net/mwazo IMAGE LOCATION: Nairobi
TYPE OF COMMISSION: Personal SHOT DETAILS: Nikon D7000, 80-200mm, f/8, 1/200s, ISO 125
ABOUT THE SHOT: This image was captured at my home studio in Nairobi, in April 2020. It was still a work in progress and I had just acquired the black velvet background that fit into my concept. The model has rich dark skin tones and a few months after first working with her in a different project I wanted to create an artistic concept around that. Out of all the complex ideas I had in mind I ended up settling for the considerably basic one, which was contrast of both colour and luminance. I felt the bright orange colours of the nails and make up would contrast well with the dark tones of her skin, and complement each other in the process. I wanted to come up with a theme that was aesthetically pleasing and attention grabbing even when viewed as a thumbnail on a web page. To add to the colours and luminance, the model’s pose would have to be striking. We did try a few that looked okay, but this was my favourite!
I am a big fan of Photoshop, especially when it comes to evening out skin tones.
For this image the post-production entailed a bit of skin retouching, evening of tones and lastly darkening her skin further and brightening the neon orange to enhance the contrast between the two. There may have been a touch-up on the hair as well.
The pre-production took away most of the potential challenges that would have been experienced during the shoot. The battle I had was in the selection of the size of the main light modifier that would bring out the image as I saw it in my head. I tested out smaller beauty dishes and larger soft boxes, before settling for the 105cm foldable beauty dish with diffusion material for a soft look.