Post work to the rescue

I was on a job shooting video and photos for a local band and saw this gentleman (who is a friend of mine) looking at his phone. I shoot on manual mode most of the time and it was set to get a good exposure on stage. He was in the dark with the only real light coming from his phone. I pointed and shot once then went back to work. I wasn’t expecting much from the photo and wasn’t surprised to see that it was too dark.

So after importing the band photos and doing a quick scan of them I thought I would play with this one. I spent only about 5 minutes or so on it and was really pleased that it turned out to be a really cool photo. I wouldn’t hang it a gallery and it is very grainy at full size but it’s still got an air to it, slightly mysterious. If I were to crop it even more so that you couldn’t quite tell that it was a cell phone your imagination could go wild with speculation. So am I inspired by this to try a real portrait by cell phone. Intentionally this time.

Moral is “Don’t give up on a bad photo until you’ve tried some post work”. I’m sure there is a more elegant way to word that but you get the idea.  If you feel it’s beyond what you know how to do then seek out a professional. I’ll give you an estimate on one if you want. I can tell within 10 seconds whether it’s worth the effort or not.