Monday, June 25, 2012

Lighting African American on black background


This is one of my favorite photos that I have ever made. I think the model brought as much to this session as I did lighting her.

I love her hair, the turtle neck and her wonderful skin and smile.

Simplicity is what makes this work so well.  You need to have the background far away from the soft boxes.  There is easily 10 feet from the model to the background.  So the amount of light hitting the subject drops off pretty quickly and what little light is hitting the background isn't enough to register in the photo.

She is around f/8 on the Mamiya RZ 6x7 camera system. I was using a 100-200mm zoom lens and shooting with Provia 100 transparency film.  I didn't know how good it was until I got the film back from the lab a day or so later.

Sure I shot a test shot. I shot that with a Polaroid back using Fuji's Polaroid film.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great advice Stanley.

I am not a fan of the ubiquitous "full frontal" lighting. It's flat and boring.

This adds depth, character, and texture.

Thanks for the tips.

I have an assignment coming up where this will come in hand.

Unknown said...

Thanks Pablo Conrad.