"Seeing Through The Noise"

During the recent Professional Photographers Association of Massachusetts annual convention, one of the featured speakers was Darton Drake.  A wonderfully talented, knowledgeable and funny guy.  During his seminar, the lights were all turned off except in the center of the room where they were dimmed to almost nothing.  I took this image with the settings of 1/80th, f/2.8, 175mm, ISO 25,600 knowing that it would be noisy due to the fact that there was literally almost no available light.

After looking at the image, I really liked the almost glow rim light effect from the dim overhead lights combined with the light coming from the reflection of the projector.  Instead of the noise being a nuisance, I looked at it as more of the actual medium of this image to create an interesting look.  So with some sharpening and contrast enhancement, I boosted the appearance of the noise to create an almost painted canvas appearance.

A special thanks to Darton for sharing his experience with us all during our convention.