Candid Diwali Night Moment

Create one vertical 9:16 image: a candid phone photo of the man in the attached photo on the street outside his home on Diwali night, taken by a friend at the exact second a cracker goes off nearby.

Identity first. He is the same person as in the attached photo: keep his facial structure, eyes, brows, nose, lips, jaw, facial hair, skin tone, age and natural asymmetry, and the texture of his hair. Take only who he is from that photo; its pose, clothes, expression and light do not carry over.

The moment. He was standing with friends when a cracker burst off to one side, behind the camera. He has flinched and is laughing at himself: shoulders up, head pulled slightly back and turned toward the noise, eyes looking past the camera at it, mouth open in a real laugh. His hands are down, out of frame.

He wears a black shirt with a slight sheen, sleeves rolled and the top button open, with beige chinos. Dressed up for the evening, in clothes he would wear again.

Framed from the waist up, his face large in the upper-middle. At one edge of the foreground, out of focus, a friend's hand holds a lit sparkler that throws sparks into the frame.

Light. The sparkler lights the near side of his face warm gold, and the cracker's burst adds a brief brighter glow from the direction he is looking, so his whole face reads clearly. Behind him the street is dark and soft: a row of small oil lamps along a compound wall, drifting smoke catching the light, neighbours as silhouettes.

A real phone photograph at night: natural skin texture, visible grain, no retouching. One main person; no readable text, letters or logos anywhere.