This portrait was created as a part of a series of photo I am calling the Rhode Island Portrait Project. You can see some of the other photo in this project here

I created this portrait with the intention of showing off John Ford’s incredible physical presence mixed with the feeling of aspiration, determination, and hope. I wanted the focus to be entirely on John for this so I went with a studio background instead of working in the “real world” the setting for my camera were:

ISO 141 Shutter 1/160th aperture F 4.5 with 3 light sources shown here

lighting set up for portrait of John Ford

I used a bare bulb flash no modifications set camera right about 1/32nd power results shown here

Lighting set up for portrait of John Ford

Then I added another bare bulb flash about 1/8th power pointed at John from the back and very much toward my camera this added some wonderful back light and beautiful lens flare shown here

lighting set up for portrait of John Ford

I used an Octabox up and camera left about 1/8th power. After a little photoshopping (I cleaned up the background and made the portrait a little more punchy but that is it)

here is the final photo

John Ford from Manic Training for the Rhode Island Portrait Project

Some other tricks we did:

Baby oil smeared all over John to give him a nice sheen, and I sprayed him down with water to make it look like he was sweating. Open the photo to see it at a proper size