wait for it...

Camera: Canon 20D 1/250sec at f/5.6 Lens: Canon 17-40mm f/4.0 USM L
Flash: 580EXII 1/2 power

When all else fails ... wait. A few weeks ago I went on a short photo walk in downtown Louisville and walked away with two things ... 1) the need for a cup of Starbucks and 2) a memory card with nothing all that great. I was a little frustrated and almost didn't even import the images into my computer. This morning as I was preparing to record a video for next week I ran across the image above (but un-edited as displayed below).

Something clicked in my twisted head and I jumped into the develop panel in Lightroom. I started experimenting with darkening the background and shaping the light. One of the frustrating things from that photo walk was the sky. It was mid-day and completely overcast. This killed any shadows I was trying to create with my speedlight coming in from the left. After playing around in Lightroom for a bit I realy like what I came up with and it is very much what I was going for on location. I will be doing a tutorial on this image tomorrow - so until then go back into your catalogue of images on your hard drive and re-visit images that initally didn't impress you (possibly due to the situation or emotional state you were in when you photographed them or initally viewed them on the computer). They might be worth a second look!