Chris Knight - The Dramatic Portrait: The Art of Crafting Light and Shadow

THE ART OF CRAFTING LIGHT AND SHADOW

Chris Knight

THE DRAMATIC PORTRAIT

The Art of Crafting Light and Shadow

Chris Knight

www.chrisknightphoto.com

Project editor: Ted Waitt
Project manager: Lisa Brazieal
Marketing coordinator: Mercedes Murray
Copyeditor: Susan Rimerman
Interior design, layout, and type: WolfsonDesign
Front cover design: Charlene Charles-Will
Cover production: Mike Tanamachi
Lighting diagrams created with Sylights software

ISBN: 978-1-68198-214-4
1st Edition (1st printing, June 2017)
2017 Chris Knight

Rocky Nook Inc.
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San Rafael, CA 94901
USA

www.rockynook.com

Distributed in the U.S. by Ingram Publisher Services
Distributed in the UK and Europe by Publishers Group UK

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016944456

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While reasonable care has been exercised in the preparation of this book, the publisher and author assume no responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein or from the use of the discs or programs that may accompany it.

This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Printed in China

First and foremost, thank you Mom and Dad for your support, pragmatism, and fostering my creativity from a young age. Thank you to Ted and Susan for making sense of my verbosity and dealing with a need for validation through an overuse of commas. Justin, Connelly, Rick, and Navid, your input and contributions were invaluable and Im grateful. Thank you to everyone who contributed to this book in some way, either as subjects or an ear when I needed it. Last but not least, thank you Lindsay for being the engine behind this book; it would not exist without you. You continually impress me, and I couldnt ask for a better partner, cheerleader, and confidant. Thank you for being on this journey with me.

Chris Knight was born in Wiesbaden, Germany, and hardened by the sweaty, nearly chewable humidity of Florida. He combines his unconditional love of art history with his conditional love of technology, topping it off with a flare for the cinematic and an uncompromising eye for detail.

His work has appeared in or on Vogue, People, MSNBC, ABC, Ocean Drive, GQ, and elsewhere.

Chris is an instructor at Pratt Institute as well as the New York Film Academy.

A picture of someone is all well and good, but when a portrait is created with intenta purposeit gives an image depth and helps it to stand the greater test of time. We may regularly forget to ask ourselves whywe are creating a photo, but the whysthe meaning behind our photographsare at the core of what makes an image expressive and unforgettable. Often, the whys get skipped (or at least glossed over) in the early stages of learning photography because techniques like lighting and post-production are more concretely attainable skills.