Bob with Bloody Cricket Bat

I spent most of yesterday helping my friend Bob, taking some photographs of him with a few different props in the studio. We used a black background and one light to create this angry looking portrait. He had a cheap cricket bat and some very good fake blood with him, so we experimented and this was my favorite photo of the shoot. Bob modeled to make things a little simpler and we now both have a small set of portraits to use. I will put this and another one or two of him on this site and he will use them in his latest project. Everyone’s a winner.

The most difficult part of this set up was to get as little light on the background as possible, and not a lot of light on the face or hair. Also we found that the surface of the cricket bat was extremely reflective to the studio flash lighting, which is why it is at a funny angle. Just before you comment that if he had hit somebody with a cricket bat as the blood suggests it, the splatter would be the other way around – we realised and it doesn’t matter. It was an experiment and for our uses, it worked and Bob and I are happy with the results.