Shooting dark-skinned people

ConfusedChicca

ConfusedChicca

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Laura
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I've only shot light-skinned people in the studio before, does anything change when shooting dark-skinned people? I have a client that wants shooting against a black background.
I don't want anyone taking this in a racist way, I just want to make sure my photos come out well, so I thought I'd seek advice.
 
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I don't think you need to change. I just chimp at my screen.

This converted to jpg resized to 800 only. Nothing else applied.
 
having just done a load of portraits at work for our instant messaging system, I've had the experience of shooting (photographing) both light and dark skinned people

I was shooting against a white background, with a light blowing the background out, 1 softbox high center left of subject to light the face and head and shoulders shots

I found I had to adjust aperture by a stop or so to get it somewhere near right, what was hard was I had about 1 to 2 min to shoot each person so it was quickfire setting changes, and perhaps tweek the levels in photoshop afterwards if it was not spot on

against black background its more interesting, just take your time getting the settings right, and ensure there is enough distance between the subject and the background for the light to fall off to ensure good seperation

hope that helps a little

Phil
 
Yes and no, it's really just a question of style.

Assuming that you meter by incident measurement then the exposure will be correct, i.e. it will show the skin tones at the correct shade, regardless of the colour/tone of the subject. But that may not be the style you want to achieve.

There was one very famous photographer/teacher who lit black faces with extremely hard lighting, basically creating several areas of extreme contrast. Personally I thought his lighting was horrible but he liked it and I assume that his sitters did too.

Another guy I know, an African American, produced some beautiful shots of his family just by overexposing their faces by about 3 stops and using very soft lighting.

As I say, just a question of personal choice/style.

One thing worth mentioning, if you want to shoot people with black hair against a black background you'll need a backlight on the hair
 
And here's a shot that illustrates the need to separate the person from the background
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If you doing studio you only read the light with your meter the subject will not matter, its only if you are spot reading reflected light it will go wrong
Reflective reading will try to make what ever your subject is in to mid gray.
So no problem with your studio
 
ConfusedChicca said:
I've only shot light-skinned people in the studio before, does anything change when shooting dark-skinned people? I have a client that wants shooting against a black background.
I don't want anyone taking this in a racist way, I just want to make sure my photos come out well, so I thought I'd seek advice.
Click to expand...

I am a novice, but I once shot a black woman against a black door. I used a little fill flash (or the sun was shining from one side, I forget) and it turned out very nice. Not sure if I will be able to find the photo, it was ages ago.

Love the thread title :D

Gary.
 
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