...this is probably as dark as it gets.

I decided kids may not make the best subjects for the hard, shadowy look I've been fiddling with lately.  I'll try to keep them well-lit in primary colors from now on.  I still wanted to go down the road I was on last time with off-camera flash, though.  I also wanted to know where the road "ends" for that type of picture... how far you can take it... and I think this is it:

This post may seem a little self-indulgent, seeing as how they're all pictures of me, but I was the only one with a goatee at the time.  I think a goatee helps with these kind of pictures.

I actually started off with the one below, but from what I've seen from other photographers, the 90 degree light has been overdone.  It was cool the first six or eight times I saw it, but it's losing its luster for me.  I don't know why.  Maybe it's just too generic.

Notice the SWEET minimalist "arm-shelf"!  What better place to rest a chin?  Mock all you want.  I'm new to photography and even newer to male modelling (although I HAVE seen Zoolander... and that counts for something, I'm sure!).

The hard light can be really unforgiving, so I wouldn't exactly recommend looking at these much closer... unless you have dreams of becoming a dermatologist or something.  My point is that I can't imagine getting a nice, flattering photo of anyone but a guy this way.  Bags under the eyes, shadows from every blemish, wrinkles that look like canyons.  Nice if you want the "weathered" look.  Not great if you're going for "pretty" or "young".

There was one other in the set that I thought was cool.  It was luck.  Like when you chip in a golf shot.  With a bucket full of balls, maybe you could do it once more... maybe not.

In the other two, I'm one-eyed.  This one had an angle where the light caught both eyes.  I think if I hadn't been grinning, the chubby part of my left cheek (your right) might have hidden in the shadow, too.  Regardless, I like the bright eye in the otherwise shadowy half of the face.

My next pictures will likely be from Christmas celebrations, so this will probably be the last of the "dark side" of my experimentation for a while.