Black Portraits

From portraiture to photojournalism, fashion, weddings and whatever
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Dusty
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Black Portraits

Unread post by Dusty »

Anyone have any tips for portraits of Black people? Especially the very dark skinned ones. They always seem to have a shine to their skin, as if it were oily (and it's not) and those with bald or shaved heads seem much worse.

If doing formal portraits, I guess it would be possible to powder down the shine, but many times these shots are just interesting faces at events.

Thanks,
Dusty
An a700, an a550 and couple of a580s, plus even more lenses (Zeiss included!).
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KevinBarrett
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Re: Black Portraits

Unread post by KevinBarrett »

I haven't worked much in that regard, myself, but I'd say just use it. Make sure the reflections you get are still flattering, just like light on any model.
Kevin Barrett
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pakodominguez
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Re: Black Portraits

Unread post by pakodominguez »

Use a lightmeter and incident metering. Then, other than just the exposure challenge, dark skin tones use to fall to the greenish side of the spectrum. using an accurate white balance will help alot, but probably busting saturation, or using the "autumn" creative mode (and not the recommended "Portrait" mode) will help.
Regards

Pako
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