This is how I photograph gritty portraits like an award-winning TV crime show using filters & flash!

Have you ever wondered how streamers like Netflix and Amazon create those dramatic portraits of the stars in their thrillers? You know, the ones of the grizzled detective in a moody scene, where the actor is well lit, but the background is somehow both dark and blurry?

Well, you don't need a visual artist or illustrator – or any AI! – just the right camera techniques, and the right lens, a flashgun, and ND (Neutral Density) filter...

So, what’s the best way to shoot portraits in daylight? Use a long focal length and wide aperture to blur the backgrounds so the subject stands out? Or what about if you want to use some fill flash and underexpose the background for extra contrast and drama?

If you use a wide aperture for a shallow depth of field to blur the background behind your subject in even lighting, you may have to accept annoying shadows on their faces, and the backdrop will be much the same brightness as your subject as well. As our example above illustrates.

If you use flash you can fill in shadows on faces. But with your camera’s maximum flash sync speed of around 1/200 sec, you’ll need to shoot at an aperture of around f/9 or more if you want to underexpose and darken the background in broad daylight – and at that aperture the depth of field increases and this means the background isn’t that blurred, and so your subject doesn’t stand out as well (see above example shot).

But what if we could combine a wide aperture and flash to capture both a dark and blurred background? Well, by using an ND filter on our lens, we can!

By adding an ND filter to your lens, it reduces the amount of light reaching the sensor, which means we can use a wide aperture but still keep the background dark.

With an ND filter attached to our fast Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM lens, on our overcast day we could we can shoot at f/2.8 and 1/160 sec to blur the background and, crucially, to darken it too.

Plus by using a flashgun to brighten up our subject, it will separate him or her from the background, creating a really dramatic and dark portrait – a look that’s popular with gritty TV shows and films on Netflix, Amazon, HBO, Apple TV, Sky, ITV, and the BBC.

With an ND filter on your lens, for a dramatic portrait we need to set an exposure so the background is dark and contrasts with our subject. We were shooting on
an overcast day so our exposure was f/2.8 and 1/100 sec, with the ISO set to 320 to ensure the flash was bright enough on our subject.

We added a softbox diffuser for softer light. To create moody side-light rather than boring straight-on flash, we’ve used triggers and flash on a stand to one side of our subject. As the ND filter cuts the light reaching the sensor, we need to set out flashguns to full power to light our subject’s face effectively.

With our lights and exposure set up perfectly, now it’s just a case of focusing accurately, working on our composition and getting our subject to pose for a great shot. We encouraged our subject to have a moody expression, and found shooting against the under-exposed sky worked well together.