Portrait of Keyboard Player

He had just finished a piece when I took the shot. Head tilted, hand still resting on the keys, that slight smirk not forced but earned. This wasn’t posed—it was a breath between moments, a performer halfway out of character and halfway into self-awareness. The ambient energy of the room still swirled around him—soft voices, chairs moving, blurred motion in the background—but he held still.

I composed tight to emphasise the contrast between stillness and motion. The background drags slightly, figures abstracted by a slower shutter speed, but the face and fingers are crisp—anchoring the shot where it needs to be. The lighting was mixed: tungsten overhead, cooler light from the keyboard display. I balanced the white point to favour skin tone and let the rest fall into soft dissonance. It worked.

Technically, it’s honest. Some noise in the shadows, a bit of lens distortion at the edges, but the depth and expression are intact. I resisted cleaning it up too much in post—this isn’t a publicity shot, it’s a trace of performance. The suit, the hand position, the leaning angle—all speak to a kind of eccentric professionalism.

It’s not a glamour portrait. It’s a glimpse of someone who lives in music, just briefly surfacing.