Portrait-photographyPortrait photography © Roger Donovan, Media Photos

Today's from From The Archive post is a shot of dance teacher Miranda who was looking for a new portrait for her social media pages.

The photographs were shot on location at her home and for me this was my best effort from the shoot.

Quite a lot of work has been done to get to the final result including desaturating the image so that it is nearly B/W, increasing the contrast and introducing more black into the shadows so that the image becomes very graphic. The final touch in Photoshop was to introduce some tilt/shift blur to suggest that it had been shot on a large format camera with bellows movement. Not something I have to say I have ever done. Indeed the largest format I have ever shot is 6x7. The tilt/shift blur gives the appearance of a shallow depth of field so the hair and jumper appear soft and out of focus which helps to accentuate the eyes.

Miranda's short hair already gave her a striking look but this treatment and the single light source which highlights her high cheek bones together with an almost Mona Lisa like enigmatic smile I think make for a strong portrait.