I always enjoy when I can put some creativity into the work I'm doing. This goes doubly for portraits. So often, people tell me they don't want any of their wrinkles to show up in the picture, and I understand that. But often that also removes the character and personality from the portrait. So when Mike, who's an author, came along and told me he wanted a dark and moody shot for the bio page on his new book, I was excited.
This portrait was taken with a two light setup. One was to the camera right with a large reflector and diffusor, and the second one was to camera left and behind the subject to illuminate the smoke (yes, there was a smoke machine), and to separate the subject from the background.
I then processed the image in Adobe Lightroom, bringing down the colors selectively. I think it came out well.