4
Votes
Mario Jones's picture

Good evening

Most photographers are intimidated by black skin.
Yea I said it!

The first thing they try to do is overexpose and hope that will resolve the issue.
What it's actually doing is taking away all the detail.
The background of the image also suffers because this gets blown out the majority of the time.
Then the photographer realizes their mistake and decides to take the image and make it black and white. In their heads all images look great in black and white. “smh”

Guys it's really simple when you step back and look at it.
There's almost a stop or two difference in exposure between your black subject and your background the majority of the time especially when shooting outdoors.
To get better images all you have to do is either light your subject or choose a darker background that's closer to the subjects exposure.

Please stop making my brothers and sisters look horrible.
Just take the time to learn how to do it properly.

Lit with a sb700 and a lastolite 76cm softbox.

http://www.clippix.co.uk
https://www.facebook.com/clipphotoportrait
instagram @c1ip

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1 Comment

I read your words and I don't really agree with most of your points (they seem more like wild generalizations and the rest seem like captain obvious points aimed at amateurs) , but looking at the image makes me think that your words don't match the shot... For example, the background of this shot has no detail, in fact, it appears overly post edited (the colors of the sunset sky look too purple and gradients are too obvious). The lighting temperature of the subject doesn't match the background either. The key light source is too small and the (black) subject is lit poorly. :) The subject has no catch-light in her eye(s) and the viewer doesn't have a focused attention on her face (no detail), so the viewer scrolls down to admire her figure, but that's disappointing also due to the same lack of detail (poor lighting). Lastly, I'm not a fan of the background's underexposed triangular and curved 2D shapes. They don't enhance, match, or add anything to the overall shot, except add non needed empty space. It's not even negative space, it's just wasted space.