Lighting for Dark skinned subjects?

[david_rush]

My Quandry... I have been shooting semi-pro for about 20 years, I am

not a portrait photographer by any means. I "fell" into a good thing

and I need assistance in lighting tech. I recently "shot" a band for

a record company. They loved the promo 8X10's and asked me if I

could do promos for several of their artists. I agreed.

The promos that I did I used massive direct tungsten/quartz studio

floods, to get a "decent" shot (I blew many circuit breakers). I am

metering to the subjects skin and white balancing. The skin tones

are great, the color is great but I can not seem to get

the "balance" the I need. I shoot both Dig and Film. I despise flash

(way to harsh). This is normally a "low light" atmosphere. I was

told to go with white or silver umbrellas, it enhances the clothing

but the darker skinned people are not coming out as expected. I hate

blasting the poor guys with intense light/heat with little effect. I

also bumped my stops and bracketed. ANY SUGGESTIONS? Dave

[john_murphy1]

Some take a product photography approach to portraiture, which says, "Shape (mold) dark objects with specular highlight, shape light objects with shadows." Monte Zucker is a proponent of this approach to dark-skinned people, <a href="http://www.montezucker.com/detail.html?sortNumber=20&gallery=Portraits%3a%20Color&skipno=18"> using side lights to create highlights that will shape the face</a>. When photographing a mixed group of light and dark-skinned individuals, this may be the best you can hope for.</p>

Personally, I prefer the approach that is seen in glamour photos, which is simply to light the dark-skinned subjects straight on, while creating some specular highlights by using a harder light than you would normally use for a light-skinned model. <a href="http://www.jeffreyhornstein.com">Jeffrey Hornstein</a> has some nice portraits of dark-skinned people at his website.

[jonathan_brewer1]

I went to the link to Monte Zucker's shot of an African American, it's a series of harsh and garish hot spots, I don't care if it's Monte Zucker executing this shot, it's a mistake, and it looks terrible,..................at the other end of the spectrum, I went to the Jeffrey Hornstein link to his site(which I've seen before).........................and if you go to 'Headshots', the first shot, which is of a dark skinned African American woman, qualifies as a much better technique in terms of lighting darker skin.

 

Lighting a darker skinned individual shouldn't present any more of a problem than photographing folks with 'pale' skin TOGETHER with 'dark' skinned folks in the SAME shot,.....................there's are choices of gear, and techniques that will work, and choices that won't, lighting dark skin w/a silver umbrella is the last thing I would do, a silver umbrella is going to give you silver looking hot spots on darker skin which tends to be warm/earth colored.

 

This isn't any more of a problem than photographing a dark/black car, or a dark/almost black/black anything, and if you're not getting what you want, then throw out the silver umbrellas,.........small garish looking hots spots don't look as bad on pale skin because there's less of a transition between the hot spot and the surrounding areas because pale skin is a brighter tone, on darker skin the hot spots look worse because there's more of a transition between those area and the shadow areas which go imediately dark or black, you can start to address this considering a broad/non directional light source in striving even lighting on the skin, and more intense 'fill' to booset up detail in the shadow areas, and you can do this even if you have both dark skinned folks and 'white' folks w/pale skin in the same shot.

 

Bracketing exposures on light sources isn't going to do you any good if the light source is creating 'small garish hot spots', because increasing the illumination/exposure is just going to make them worse, you need to EVEN OUT your lightsource start thinking of using bigger softboxes, or shooting through a broad area of silk, and using a LOT of fill.

 

Go to a thread 3 or 4 thread below this one, I believe it's called 'please critique this shot' by Elaine Vang,...............I have a shot of Dayna, it's high key, on an individual who's medium brown skinned(think of a jar of honey), go to my website, www.imageandartifact.bz and go the 'about us' section, the picture of my family depicts my wife, who's very dark, compare the technique used on her against the Monte Zucker shot.

 

I'm not interested in a flame war or personalities, and it's a beautiful Saturday morning so spare me any acrimony today, I'm African American myself and have quite a few African American clients and I have quite a bit of experience addressing the issue of illuminating dark skin, and I've come up w/some things that work, I think Monte Zucker has done some wonderful things, but he's wrong on this.

 

Even out the light, w/using bigger and broader, more non-directional light sources, and a great deal more fill, and bracket, forget the silver umbrellas.

[john_murphy1]

Jonathan,</p>

Nice website, here's the active link:

<a href="http://www.imageandartifact.bz">Image and Artifact</a></p>

You make the point that I was reluctant to make since Monte Zucker is a big name photographer: people (of any skin color) want their photos to make them look good, not to satisfy the beliefs of the "artist" who took the photographs. A more extreme example of this is the portraits that Ansel Adams took, which make the people look awful, but they're worth a lot of money because he was a master.</p>

[john_murphy1]

Incidently, if you want to insert an active link, include this line:

 

<a href="http://www.imageandartifact.bz">Image and Artifact</a>

 

This will work as long as you have "HTML" selected at the bottom.

Unfortunately, it means that in order to have normal paragraph breaks you need to insert </p> or </br> at the end of each paragraph.

[john_murphy1]

Ignore the fact that the above html tag is partially blue. In the event of an actual HTML posting it would look right.

[jonathan_brewer1]

Thank you very much, I'd really rather not get into knocking the work of somebody that does this to eat and pay the rent, but I think the folks that are moulding their future by what is impressed on them now, need the benefit of both sides of the story, or a better way to go if there is one.

 

You've made a good point though, if what I/you/absolutely anybody happens to try, doesn't work, it doesn't work, the best approach is to figure out why, which is the only way to make it work.

[jonathan_brewer1]

Hey thanks.................I learned something, which I never figured out how to do, but let me make sure I understand it correctly, do you spell out the complete line, not just the part that is blue?

[garry edwards]

Basically I go along with Jonathans' thinking on this. I am by no means an expert on portraits, let alone portraits of black people, where life can become more difficult if the skin is oily, but I do know a bit about lighting in general and everything that Jonathan says makes sense.

 

I think I understand the Monte Zucker approach, the result is certainly dramatic, and I won't criticise it because IMO whether a technique works or not depends on whether or not it achieved the required result, not on whether or not other people happen to like it.

 

The shot below uses dramatic lighting, I took it as a demo of a lighting technique so in that sense at least it works. It combined soft lighting, rim lighting and mask lighting. Jonathan once posted an outstanding photo of his wife, taken I think on her 46th birthday (but I think that must be a typo because the lighting makes her look 26) and this picture demonstrates his approach perfectly.

 

BTW Jonathan, if you include the full URL (include the http://) then you'll get a live link without the need for the HTML

 

Back to the original question, I would avoid continuous lighting at all costs. Too hot and uncomfortable and not enough power. More importantly, not easy to diffuse when required. Flash is a lot easier<div></div>

[garry edwards]

Oops, wrong pic! The pic I posted above is with a single softbox. The correct one, of the same model, is below.

[garry edwards]

Try again Garry....<div></div>

[jonathan_brewer1]

Thank you very much Garry, I appreciate it. Yes you are correct, in the finaly analysis everyone has to choose for themselves.

[david_rush]

Hi Guys,

Thanks for all your input. I will definitley adhere to all, I appreciate everyones response.. Black/dark-skinned folks are definetley difficult to photograph, everyone knows that. I never in my life thought that I would need to know this info. Thanks for all the input!!

Dave Rush

[david_rush]

thanks for adding those photos,I see where the front light is an the backlight. its a great photo.. the model is beautiful... I would love to post my shots but a cant find the upload button!

Dave

[garry edwards]

Dave,

 

You just type your answer in the usual way then press 'Submit'

 

Then click on 'Browse' to find the photo on your hard drive. It needs to be less than 511 pixels wide if you want it to display in the thread, and you also need to give it a caption of some kind

[david_rush]

Thanks Gary,

I will give it a try. Next Question which I failed to mention. ooops my fault. I am taking photos of "groups" of dark skinned folks. 3 or 4 guys or gals, but all have different skin tones. And each is wearing different color shirts/wardrode. I can't ask them to change wardrone because that is their "sig". I may have a guy (very dark skinned) in black leather and a light skinned women in black also, paired with a light skinned in dark or light clothing. Back to my quandry. I can appreciate doing a single portrait. I can accomadate the lighting. Multiple skin tones/lighting has me totally baffled. Once Again, I am not a portrait photographer by trait. And I do appreciate all the help I am receiving on photo.net Thanks Guys.

Dave<div></div>

[jonathan_brewer1]

'Once Again, I am not a portrait photographer by trait.'...........................nobody is when you start out, you will be if you choose to, by sticking with it, the issue of what you are notwithstanding, I don't think photographing folks with different skintones will be as difficult for you as you think,....................go to my website...........www.imageandartifact.bz, then go2 'about us', the shot of my family, my wife is dark, in person, looking at her skin, you'd think dark Hershey bar, my daughter is much lighter, light brown, the color of wheat bread, my son is right in between.

 

In your shot, the gentleman second from left is in more shadow from his position than from the lighting, you can see detail in the other three, and I just don't think the differing skintones will be a problem for you if you revisit the issue of evening out the light via a broad non-directional lightsource with plenty of fill. They SHOULD LOOK DIFFERENT, their having differing skintones ISN'T the problem, take this to an even further extreme, with using softboxes or a broad area silk, you could photograph somebody with 'pale' skin right next to a dark skinned African American no problem, IF you're rendering detail you can see in the skin of both subjects, AND YOU WILL, if you even out the light and pile in the fill.

 

This is a problem where the solution lies in the type of lighting you use, NOT the subject matter, stick w/it Dave,..........even, broad-non directional key light, with a lot of detail in the shadow areas left by the key because you pumped a lot of fill into those shadows,......................................................... this'll work for a dark skinned person,........for somebody w/pale skin and freckles who walks into the scene and stands next to that dark skinned person,.........a photograph of a white sheet of paper right next to a black sheet of paper,......a white car, parked right next to a black car.

 

Having several African Americans in the same shot, all w/different skintones isn't the problem, it's seeing DETAIL in those differing skintones, pumping fill light into a shadow left by a keylight on somebodies face to show detail in that shadow, IS EXACTLY THE SAME THIN as that same fill light bringing out detail in the skin of somebody with a darker skintone.

 

If you can light somebody and show detail not only in the areas illuminated by the key, but also in the shadow areas by using a lot of fill, then you can use the SAME TECHNIQUE to light a lighter skintoned individual next to a person w/dark skin, it amounts to the same thing, try it Dave, it works,...........Happy Thanksgiving.

[jonathan_brewer1]

Maybe saying this will clarify things, consider photographing a single person where you are able to render detail in the highlight areas illumnated by the key, and also in the darker areas left by the key, and this is EXACTLY THE SAME THING as photographing two SEPERATE PEOPLE, with different skintones.

 

Lighting different skintones in the same scene is the SAME THING as being able to render detail between highlight and shadow in the same shot.

[david_rush]

Jon,

Thank You very much! I do appreciate your time and your skills. Like I said I am not a portrait guy but now I need to be, short notice. I have a shoot coming up in december ( a jean shoot). I will "adjust" my shots. I shoot 35 mm but I also shoot digital. Imagine That.

[david_rush]

Do I meter to the darker skined subject? And if I use strobes with umbrellas how do i meter my gn being it is not direct but diffused, white umbrellas but with black backing, dark skinned subjects. If my gn is based on flash to subject and if i diffuse my flash how do i determine the GN?

Dave