A-Z

Hi my name is Stephanie and I have been reading everyone's helpful posts for a long time but just actually joined today. I have a kind of strange question I was hoping you could help me out with. I have a small photography business and a few weeks ago I was asked to take pics at my neighbors party, who happen to also be our good friends. My neighbors are black and while taking pictures I noticed that either the black people in the pictures were coming out too dark or when trying to adjust so they would be lighter then the white people in the picture were coming out to washed out. I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions for me so that wouldn't happen next time I took pictures. Thank goodness they were very happy with the pics, but I am my own worst critic and I want to do better next time. Thank you for any help 😊😊😊

edwdickinson Loc: Ardmore PA

Were you using fill flash?

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Yes, this is a concern that many people have posted about.

https://www.picturecorrect.com/tips/how-to-photograph-various-skin-tones/

A-Z

Since it was in tbe middle of the day and it was pretty bright I didn't use my extra flash, but maybe I should have. I didn't think that would help the contrast in color.

A-Z

Thank yo so much for the article, it was very helpful!

elee950021 Loc: New York, NY

Stephanie! Not a strange question at all! You can try a number of things. With these suggestions, you are looking to reduce the contrast between the folks with light and darker skin tones. If you're outside, find an area that is in the shade or has light reflected off, perhaps, the side of a neutral colored building or wall. Be sure the light is even and not splotchy like the light that falls through tree branches and leaves. At first, the light might look good but if you squint your eyes you'll see the unevenness or "light droplets" or larger areas falling on faces. A no-no! Move to a more evenly lit location. It's the reason artists often squint to reduce the light of the scene to "see" the most important values and tonalities.

A second procedure is to place the people with darker skin tones closer or in the center front the group. Put the very light skin people in the second row. Exposure wise, I would give it plus 1/3 or 1/2 stop
to bring up the darker faces and still retain some tone in the lighter faces. Shoot using "raw" to gain more flexibility in post processing your images.

Thirdly, you can use on camera or supplementary flash with a diffuser or "mini-softbox" in front of the flash to lighten the darker faces.

Fourth, you can have your group face away from the light (backlight) if shooting under early or bright sunlight and use your accessory flash unit or camera flash as a fill flash.

Fifth, in your camera, depending on the brand's menus and buttons, you can adjust the contrast, density, saturation, etc. With my Nikon D200 at hand, under the "Shooting" menu, I can go to "Optimize Image" and go from "Normal" to "Softer," "Portrait" or "Custom." With "Custom" in the sub-menus, I can also decrease (or increase) contrast. My newer Nikons have updated menus and more concise settings. Don't forget to reset the camera when shooting normally!

And finally you can decrease and brighten the darker faces with post processing in your favorite program. Remember you'll have to perform a few test shoots to get the optimum exposures. You may find the results you like by combining several of the mentioned techniques.

Best wishes and hopefully these suggestions will help you.

repleo Loc: Boston

Just read this from Sharpshooter on another post this morning and thought it might be helpful.

.'...there's a new guy on the Hog named Snake Oil Salesman, you should PM him, he's done 350 weddings, the pics he has posted are incredible, should be able to give you some killer ideas about shooting angles and he's an expert on shooting African Americans in case there are any there...'

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

If it was indoors, bounce flash (off the walls and ceilings) would provide low contrast, flattering light. Regardless of what you use for lighting, you should set your exposure to properly expose the lighter subjects and avoid blown highlights. Shooting raw will help ensure good results when "opening up" the shadows.

If you are using flash, the small modifiers will not soften the light enough to my taste. A large softbox or umbrella does, but it will not be easy to manage. Turn the flash head around and point it over your shoulder. If you use an ISO of 800-1600 you will have more than enough flash power to properly illuminate your subjects.

If you are using ambient light, use the camera's spot meter function to measure the lightest element in the scene, then add 1 stop to the meter's reading to get properly exposed highlights without losing detail.

This was done with bounce flash off the ceiling/wall behind me, ISO 1600, F 5.6 hotshoe-mounted Sunpak 383 manual flash at half power, raw capture. I don't know of any portable flash modifier that can give you this quality of light.
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(Download)

wdross Loc: Castle Rock, Colorado

Been busy lately and missed this good post and photo. Really did a beautiful job on this shot. Anyone would love to be the owner of your shot.

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

Thanks!

A-Z

Thank you so much for taking the time to give me all those great suggestions!! They were so helpful! I even printed them out and stuck them in my camera bag as a little cheat sheet. I really appreciate your help 😊

A-Z

That's a beautiful picture! Thank you so much for the suggestions and for sharing your camera settings.😊I am going to try that out with my camera

Notorious T.O.D. Loc: Harrisburg, North Carolina

You may want to look into getting and using the X-Rite ColorChecker Passport if you don't already use one. It will help you get accurate colors and adjustments to your RAW files. You can also use it to calibrate a light meter like the Sekonic 758 or 858 to,your cameras sensor. There a a number of videos on YouTube regarding its use. Joe Brady has some and Mark Wallace also...

Best,
Todd Ferguson

sreader

Hello Stephanie....you are touching on a very basic issue of photography, the reflective quality of a subject. If you were to take an ordinary photographic print, one composed of many different shades of black, white and gray, you could measure a large number of spots on the photo and see what percentage of the light falling on the print is reflected from the subject back to the camera. This was done by Kodak in the early 1900's and they found the average was 18% of the light falling on a subject was reflected back to the camera. Modern exposure meters are calibrated to tell the use what the correct exposure is to achieve 18% average shade (also called middle gray). Caucasian skin is lighter than the average subject and reflects about 36%. Black skin is less than 18%, my guess is about 9%. So you have a situation where white skin is twice as reflective a middle gray (ie, one stop brighter) and black is about 1 stop less than middle gray. This is a range of 3 stops, well within the dynamic range of modern cameras. Given even lighting, you should have no trouble showing both. I assume your lighting was not even and I assume your exposure was based on the meter in the camera. One way outdoors to even lighting is to use a strobe to fill in shadows. For metering, if the subject is black, use the spot meter function of the camera to measure the exposure of the black skin and then, in manual mode, open the f stop 1 stop. Likewise, measure the white skin and close the f stop 1 stop. This will give you a middle ground that should do justice to each. You can change contrast in Lightroom or Photoshop to tweak this a bit. https://www.nyip.edu/photo-articles/fun-stuff-for-photographers/photographing-people-of-color is a link for photography blacks.

SirCharlesEdward

Nice article.