Meet Shylo, one of the most prolific graffiti artists in
Billings’ new graffiti alley behind Good Earth Market and Pug Mahon’s. Shylo is
unique in the world of graffiti for being a Christian graffiti artist who
regularly paints religious themed artwork such as the “Snakebird” piece
featured here and a number of murals for churches across the country. We’re
lucky that Shylo has recently decided to move to the Billings area and will
soon be blessing the region with more amazing graffiti. Stay tuned for more
photos featuring this artist’s work soon.
I love making portraits of artists! It’s an honor when
another artist trusts me to make a portrait for them, and even more so when I
can feature their work or workspace in an environmental portrait. Contact us at
Paul Bellinger Photography for your portrait! www.portraits.paulbellinger.com
Tips for photographers: This photo was made outside on a cloudy day and is lit with one light, a
large silver bounce umbrella high to the camera left. I like working with bounce
umbrellas because unlike a shoot through umbrella, which spills light
everywhere, a bounce umbrella is easy to control the direction of light. The
key to the light placement in this photo is the angle and direction to create a
Rembrandt pattern on Shylo’s face and the ratio of light on Shylo versus the
mural in the background. The light is about 5 feet away from Shylo, which is
further than I would normally place a light for portraiture (depending on what
I’m going for, but I like it close and soft with dramatic falloff in general).
I chose to put the light further away than I normally prefer because if it were
too close the falloff would be too quick and there wouldn’t be enough light on
the background (of course I could drag the shutter to let some ambient light up
the background, but that’s not the route I took because I was shooting handheld
and wanted the mural to be in sharp focus). I'll be posting a BTS photo of the setup on instagram soon so be sure to follow @PJBellinger.
