Recently I photographed 100 Forner classmates at a reunion. I am not happy with the results of some of the pictures of my black friends If there are some black photographers on this forum, I would really like to hear from them.
How do I take a good picture of a black person? I unfortunately did not have the luxury of changing the backdrop, and I did use a flash on everyone. I did some post processing, but that didn't help much.
We are doing this again in a few years and I want to be ready.

You need minus compensation for dark tones-not plus!

Remember the zone system?

Fed Archer/Ansel Adams developed the “Zone System”
To control exposure and contrast for black and white film photography
And To pre-visualize finished image after post processing in the darkroom,

There are11 zones black to white-each zone represent 1 EV (exposure value) stop:

0 Total black

I Almost black-no detail

II Dark grey-black -very dark detail in shadows

III Very dark grey-shadow detail-dark animal fur

IV Medium dark grey-dark green foliage, shadow side of Caucasian face
Dark stone-landscape shadow-dark skin-details plainly visible

V Medium grey-green grass-grey stone-dry tarmac-excellent detail

VI Rich mid-tone grey-Caucasian skin in sunlight-light stone and sand

VII Bright light grey-white with texture-silver hair

VIII Almost white-Delicate texture-no detail-reflected highlights on Caucasian skin

IX Nearly pure white

X Absolute white


Each zone is a tone between black and white

Each zone is either half or twice the exposure of it’s neighbour, depending on whether you are going up or down, For example Zone III is 2 stops darker than zone V, and zone VII is 2 stops lighter than zone V-As you move your exposure one stop (ev) say, from f 8 to f 11,or from 1/60sec to 1/125sec, you will have moved the exposure one zone

Although developed for black and white film, it can still be useful for digital imaging, and once you get used to using it, your resulting images will be superior to anything you have done before..

It can be difficult to understand that when working in color, that black and white and tones of grey can apply. Your camera’s meter sees in black, white and tones of grey in between.

So to help you understand:

Your camera’s built-in meter will average everything it sees as mid-grey (18% or 13%-whichever you believe to be correct) > ZONE V!

To prove that this is so, try this experiment:

Get a piece of white paper and a piece of black paper ( A4 sheets) take separate photo of each sheet, filling the frame, in the same lighting conditions, using the camera’s meter - Surprise, Surprise! They both came out mid-grey. This is because the camera’s meter averages out the scene, giving an average exposure for the scene at ZONE V.

The camera’s light meter will measure and average everything it’s pointed at

So it becomes necessary to switch to spot metering-a spot meter will measure only a very small angle (1-2 Degrees)-spot metering will let the camera know the most important part of the scene in front of it.

Ok. Let’s assume you have a Caucasian model against a relatively dark background-So you assess the scene before you, and decide that the model’s face is the most important part of the scene.

Usually Caucasian skin registers at Zone VI or Zone VII, (Even though we are looking at a color scene, the camera only sees light and dark.) When we spot meter for model’s face, this will register on camera as Zone V

We have decided to rate the model’s skin at Zone VII, and this means we must open up 2 EV stops to achieve this:

If we are in manual shooting mode, this will require us to either a) Decrease the shutter speed from, say 1/250th sec to 1/60th sec, or b) 0pen up aperture from, say F8 to F4.

If you are in auto mode/scene exposure mode, set exposure compensation to +2

Always do a final check using your histogram: In some situations, by placing the subject at a certain zone, could result in other areas of the image being under or over exposed.

Nekon, if I may I would like to go over this with a practical slant just to make sure I have understood things correctly.

I am taking a picture of a dark tree bark, using the camera spot meter. Any surrounding objects, foreground and background are irrelevant to my picture.

The bark I estimate to be in Zone IV (it's not black, colours are discernible - just.) The camera meter decides it is Zone V (mid-grey) and if allowed to carry on would capture the image which would appear to be too bright. To counteract this, I decrease exposure by one stop to bring the image back to Zone IV. Shoot the picture.

Here is where I am confused, the captured picture doesn't look too far wrong, but the histogram is bunched up on the left. If this were an average scene, I would increase exposure and in this case - over expose the image. So in this scenario, is the histogram going to tell me anything?

The test I ran was a close up of the tree bark, no real whites or highlights - sort of black cat in a darkroom effort.

Recently I photographed 100 Forner classmates at a reunion. I am not happy with the results of some of the pictures of my black friends If there are some black photographers on this forum, I would really like to hear from them.
How do I take a good picture of a black person? I unfortunately did not have the luxury of changing the backdrop, and I did use a flash on everyone. I did some post processing, but that didn't help much.
We are doing this again in a few years and I want to be ready.