Shooting a magician in the dark

After he saw my experimental night-time self portraits, magician, friend and sometimes client Paul Newton asked me to do something similar of him.  Turns out he'd had the idea in his mind for some time, but hadn't been able to get his idea across to any photographers.

So off we trotted one cold mid Novembers evening to one of the darkest places I know in Southampton that has a view, Mayflower Park.

The exposure time for all of the photos was 30 seconds, which for those of you who know Paul is rather a long time for him to stand still and not talk.  The lighting came from me, walking quickly around Paul with a torch, and because I kept moving with little or no light falling on me, I don't show up in the photos.

Now I'm sure a Photoshop expert could probably create a better end result, probably without the need to get so cold, but I'm a bit of a purist where these things are concerned and I like doing it "for real".  Anything else for me is cheating.

My approach is a bit hit and miss, all of the photos were lit differently, but after taking around 50 images we got a couple that we both really like.  A happy client and a happy photographer, what more could you ask for?  I think the final image of the three is my favourite.