Sean O.S. Barley

Grit

IF YOU ARE going to title a self-portrait “Grit,” you’re going to have to deliver a gritty look. Sean Barley brings that grit to his image with a single flash into an umbrella camera left. The side angle of the light divides the lines of the face mask into sharp highlight and shadow areas, creating that eye-catching pattern. More importantly, by raking the light across his face at an angle, the skin texture becomes sharply exaggerated, dramatically adding to the intensity of the image.