Last of my Seattle strangers’ street portraits, Harleen is orginally from Vancouver, but having relocated for university never left.

I’d seen this plan background earlier in the day whilst walking from the aquarium to the Cheesecake Factory, and returned in the evening.

Plain backgrounds can be superb in giving a stranger centre stage and emphasis, yet are a little generic city to city. I hoped the corrugated boarding here would pick up more ambient light, and get texture from the flash, all making it a little more nuanced.

Harleen and her friend Jessica kindly allowed me to ambush them as they headed out to meet friends for the night, and gave a very generous fifteen minutes of their evening to chat and take each other’s portraits both of which fizzed with the same positive energy as our conversation.

Harleen and Jessica – thanks so much for stopping and being such fun to shoot with! Please do get in touch if you’d like copies of your pictures – I’ve got both processed and ready to send!

Info for Strobist;

The key light is from a Canon 600EX-RT shot through 43″ umbrella, camera left at a 30* angle, two feet out of shot, fired from ST-E3-RT manual mode at 1/64. Harleen’s friend Jessica is holding a 1.2m white reflector a couple of feet from Harleen camera right, whilst she is also holding a smaller reflector just out of shot below.

This is portrait #93 of my 100 Strangers Project – check out the group page and get involved.