My Dad

I didn't have a good picture of my dad and I wanted something that looked natural. We're often downstairs watching TV together so that's where I wanted to take the picture. I knew I would need a flash since the window light isn't enough. So here's the setup I came up with:

I have the camera at a 45-degree angle. The flash is in a slight angle and I used my table tennis table to channel the light so it doesn't go everywhere. I was trying to get more a candid shot but I didn't look natural and looking directly as the camera was also a little weird. So I asked him to look a bit to the side instead and I prefer that.

This was shot with my Fujifilm X-T3 + Rokinon 50mm 1.2. This is out of camera raw with Lightroom presets (Adobe Monochrome):

I lifted the black, lowered the highlights, bumped the shadows a bit, and added clarity. There's a lot of local adjustments to fix some lighting issues.

50mm 1/100sec F/1.4 ISO 400

I prefer black and white but here's another edit but in color. I lowered the contrast a bit so it's a bit softer.

Now I'm happy to have a nice picture of my dad. Controlling the light is not always easy. I think having the light source closer wouldn't be better for the subject but then I would have trouble controlling the shadows on each side. Now I need to shoot my mom and my wife.