Thanks. Both were shot with available light.

The first one was shot during an opera rehearsal. This is the assistant director.
The original (RAW) was low contrast, leaning towards a bit high key. The background was mostly a white wall.
It was shot in a hall with just 8 banks of twin flouro lights (utilitarian) in the high ceiling, with a bit of difused sunlight comming through the western windows very late in the aftermoon. Normallly it is not a great place to shoot (lighting wise) ISO 1600 @ F2 territory.

#2 Is at a motor racing meeting. Shooting in the garages is like shooting in a cave. Open skylight directly behind me. I was crouching, or sitting, down in the doorway.

Yes, it's time for another installment on Composition.
Lets talk about how to shoot portraits, especially those that are out of the ordinary.
I've been complaining that we never talk about actual photography, so Lets do that.
I know there are a lot of portraits shooters here and plenty that shoot them professionally, so lets dive in.
As always, this is for the benefit of those that are not portrait shooters but maybe would like to learn more. Maybe it will make you brave enough to shoot everybody in your family till they start running when they see you coming! LoL
This is NOT another snapshot vs photograph post.
It's meant to help other less knowledgeable shooters to move to the next level or those at the next level to go beyond that.
Ask questions or answer them. Post a creative or unusual composition, lets see if we can get a 100 pages of good info! LoL
I'm not here to moderate this, just to get the ball rolling. I'm certainly not an expert. So feel free to contribute if you have experience, as some of you do, like Ed S, The Captain or Pale.
So here goes!!!
Don't respond till after my second post where I'll add some pics. Give me a few minutes to Post them so this doesn't get Auto-moved.
Thanks
SS

I am a traditional portrait photographer- have been at it, professionally, for a long time. Although my work is comparatively conservative, I am always interested in other approaches. This is what attracted me to this thread, that is, the “out of the box” preface.

Thing is, I waited for more folks to contribute to see what it up but I haven't seen that much that is all that “out of the box”. In fact, most of it rather traditional even classical. Some of it is kinda old fashioned or retro- nothin' wrong with that! There are a few images that are novel and some that are more in the category of candid family shots. I don't think that masks and cutouts make for particularity effective portraits- just my opinion.

Composition is composition regardless of the theme or content of the image, whether the subject is traditional, exotic, sensual, cute, or even bizarre. There are elements of posing, lighting and composition that always work well and others that are not as effective, distorted or awkward- regards of style or theme. Oftentimes, breaking a traditional concept makes an image more exciting or adds an element of tension.

So...when you say “out of the box” what is the comparison to “staying within the box”? What is the BOX? Is traditional portraiture perceived as boring, stiff, artificial, cookie-cutter or thought of as work like mass produced school pictures? Does it have to be that way? I am not asking theses questions be confrontational or start an unpleasant exchange. I feel theses are legitimate questions in a thread like this.