Faces behind the Bikes

Grabbed some portraits of my local riding club last week.

Faces behind the Bikes

For my taste the shadows on the right side of the faces are to dark.
Nice series anyway.

Were you trying to do Rembrandt lighting? If so the light is a bit too much to the side. These look like a split between Rembrandt and hatchet. I do like these pics but feel maybe you could make them pop a bit more if you adjust the curve a little bit.

I'd agree on the dark shadows. Not quite Rembrandt so I personally feel it needs some fill.

Yes, from a calibrated monitor too dark and loss of detail. If originals in RAW, try pulling the shadows up.

+1 on the darkness of the shadows. Can still have the drama without losing the face totally.

Was not trying Rembrandt, just simple sidelight portraits with heavy contrast. If I wanted to, would have raised the soft box a little higher and paid attention to light fall off better around the nose since it's a mix of open and closed. Upped the contrast a lot higher then what was captured in post to loose detail in shadows more so that the face seems to fall off to black. If I wanted to, I could have added a kicker or rim on the right side to separate subject from black, but again, not what I was going for.

Style to convey the idea that faces of bikers tend to get lost. Have had a lot of close people in our group die, including a close friend, in the last two months either due to traffic accidents, not their fault, or racing on closed road courses.

Just fyi, you don't always need fill or need to show detail in shadows. This is nothing more than going strong with a PC filter like 3 or 4 with film. Sometimes showing less is more.