Photographing People of Colour

<p>Hi! I love taking portraits, but I have just hit a bump in the road with one specific thing. When I photograph dark skinned people, not mater which metering technique I use, the photograph is always under exposed. I find it so frustrating because my whole family is black and it is so hard to photograph them lol. Any suggestions?</p>

<p>Brandy,</p>

<p>The way camera meters work is they try to make the scene " neutral " or often something near 18% grey. That means when you really want something to stay bright, like a white dress, or if you want something to stay dark, like a deep color or dark skin, you need to force the camera to compensate. <br>

If you are in a studio, you can add more light with bounce screens, to their faces. I suppose the same could be done outdoors too, but then you need people to hold them, or gear to do it. </p>

<p>Here is a web link on the subject, I found,.</p>

<p>http://www.nyip.com/ezine/people-and-pets/peopleofcolor.html</p>

<p>If you are just taking pictures of family in a normal everyday setting and you can't bring in reflectors, you will need to make the camera do what YOU want for an exposure. I don't know how many stops in customary for getting the right exposure on dark skin. I'm sure others will chime in with there settings. </p>

<p> </p>

<p>Brandy said:</p>

<blockquote>

<p>When I photograph dark skinned people, not mater which metering technique I use, the photograph is always under exposed.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Rather than computing some sort of arcane Zone System-compensation factor, I would merely suggest you attempt shooting in manual mode (rather than "program," aperture- or shutter-priority). Choosing ISO, shutter speed, and aperture manually really starts training your eye to visually gauge exposure levels. After a few days/weeks, you'll be surprised how well you've "guessed" the proper exposure.</p>

<p>For Speedlight-assisted photography, this doesn't mean you have to abandon the convenience of TTL--simply use the flash-compensation adjustment on your camera (which "offsets" the TTL exposure, plus or minus, in 1/3-stop increments), if needed.</p>

<p>Brandy,</p>

<p>Can I assume that you are using your in camera meter?</p>

<p>If so, it's not your technique that may be causing problems, but the fact that your are simply using a reflective meter to do the job of an incident meter. Both deliver an 18% return, but the reflective meter is measuring the light returning from the subject which will always be brighter than you want from a dark skinned person, while the incident measures the 18% of the light falling on the subject which is always dead accurate for any scene exposure. The only trick is to be sure that you are measuring the same light that is actually falling on the subject and not have the meter off measuring in a highlight or shadow area that is not of the same quality and brightness of light as is the subject.</p>

<p>The second "challenge" with photographing darker skin is the contrast ratio. Light skin by it's nature is easier to record across the highlight to shadow ratio because the shadows are always on a brighter background. Introducing a good reflector is the best solution to flattening that ratio for darker skin with a broad and gentle light source.</p>

<p>I admit to being a decided curmudgeon when it comes to fill flash instead oi a reflector. An on camera fill flash is such a tiny and specular high intensity type of light source as to introduce terrible and distracting specular highlights on the rounded surfaces of a face. Of course, while that may somewhat melt into the light tones of Caucasian skin, it becomes a nasty glaring headlight effect on dark skin, so I suggest you avoid that unless you have a very thorough diffusion system over the flash. A properly placed reflector will at most offer a much larger diffused highlight which would bring a gentle sculptural quality to the planes of the shadow side of the face.</p>

<p>Lacking an incident meter, Just meter off the palm of your own hand (in the same light as the subject) which gives about a 22% reading and then close down about 1/2 stop in manual. That should give you a nearly dead on exposure for a subject of any skin tone.</p>

<p>I have photographed the darkest skinned people from Africa, and some Indians are as dark. Over-exposure of film and under-exposure of paper was the formula when I did my own B&W printing. Neither should be over-done. Very dark skins are often helped by surface reflection. I agree with Tim that an incident light meter should be used. But if you use the alternative of taking a reflected light reading off the palm of a hand, the addition should be one stop, not half.</p>

<p>I have to believe that people are just pointing their meters at the wrong place. Just point your camera at a fairly neutral subject, fix exposure, and snap away. I took this yesterday, used the same metering as I did for every person I photographed, and had no problems. If people need to use manual mode to get a decent exposure, they haven't mastered their camera's meter. Take the time to learn how your meter operates and you won't have a problem.<br>

<center><img src="http://spirer.com/images/carn_sailor.jpg" alt="" /></center></p>

<p>Proper metering techniques as mentioned above will render proper exposure. Dark skin can be tricky for sure. All light is absorbed so the only way to really get it lighter is by creating highlight from your light source be it the sun or strobe. Jeff's picture above is a good example of what i am talking about. Without that high light in the front of his face the skin would look dark like the sides of his face shows. On light skin we create shadows but on dark skin we create highlights. You don't want to overexpose the picture by the way. There is a difference between compensating the meter plus one stop and over exposing one stop. Most of your adjustments will be done in a raw converter and you will play with dark and shadow adjustments.</p>

<p>It's all in the metering technique. This shot, from yesterday, was a quick shot capturing 3 family members from caucasian to dark black skin, in really overcast light...I was in a hurry as it was starting to rain, so merely used matrix metering.</p><div></div>

<p>You need good lighting, and give the shots one more stop of exposure. Simple.</p>