Subjects with dark skin tone create a high contrast ratio which can be hard to handle. Keep the background on the neutral side -- avoid white or bright colors. Put plenty of light on the subject and keep it even. On a light-skinned face, contrasty lighting often adds modeling and character. On a dark-skinned face the shadows don't seem as flattering. As in black and white photography, use a key light to highlight hair and shoulders and separate the person from the neutral background. Ask the talent not to wear white or red if possible. Make sure you have a good color monitor on the shoot and set it up before hand so you know what it is showing. And don't underexpose. Worry about the face and let the background go into over exposure if necessary. The camera may make a difference too. I have found that my new Sony DSR-300 really does a better job with this situation than my old JVC X2. Apparently all the fancy digital processing like the dynamic contrast handling stuff really works. Like most video situations it's really not that big a problem once you are aware of it and can control lighting and such. I've read of one person who had to shoot a clinic dedication inside a big white tent on a bright sun afternoon. The background behind the podium was the white translucent tent -- basically a huge lightbox behind the speakers. He opened up the iris as far as it would go and the subjects looked pretty good. The background all but disappeared! This is a film solution, not video, and the color issue might be different, but for a medium-dark skin tone that isn't too warm, (lets call it "Milk Chocolate"), a gold reflector keylight works very well. This didn't work as well on darker skin tones ("Bittersweet Chocolate") Here I used regular "white" light all around but made sure it was VERY SOFT and that I had a very hot backlight (which you can run blue for aesthetics). One person wrote that large sources are the way to go. Budget for a couple Chimeras and go with that. On the backdrop issue, find a material darker than the talent's skin tone, and suggest similar tonal range for the subject's attire.Don't go to straight black, though, keep some visibility in it. Rim light is also very important here, and the management of it. Perhaps a larger, lower power Chimera? One of the worst situations he can imagine is seeing a dark complexion person in a white shirt with no jacket against a white wall being blasted by enough light to roast them. If your subject has a bright shirt, you may need to flag light off the shirt. Put a flag or reflector between your frontal lighting so that less light hits the shirt. This is less than ideal but will work if you are forced to light in such a situation. Very important: The reason for the large sources is that what you need is more even lighting, not more light. Think of lighting an inanimate object of the same characteristics - dark, slightly reflective, sort of specular. You need to have large, even light and open shadow areas, so fill and key ratio might be a bit closer than normal. The first point to remember is that you are not trying to raise their skin tone to %70-80%. Some people do this, they just keep pumping and pumping in front light. Watch some movies or TV shows (dramatic, not sitcom) with close-ups of really dark actors. You'll notice that what you're really seeing, what is actually giving shape and detail to the face, is glare and highlights. The tones and shadows of the face remain dark. What does this mean? Well you want to light dark complexioned faces in a way very similar to black jewelry or obsidian stones. You use reflections and glare rather than fighting it. In fact, you want a little shininess on the face, the exact opposite of pale faces, where you use makeup to dampen the shine. So Side Lighting and Rim Lighting. Large sources work better than point sources. Bouncing a 1K into a curved white card for a side light can create a very nice glare off the skin along the neck. Side lights can work off the cheeks. Try some warm gels on one side, and cool gels on the other. For the eyes you want a nice broad softlight, to create a sparkle in the eye, and fill in the sockets a little. This is a challenge if you haven't lit very dark skin before, but its worth the effort, as the results can be incredibly rich and gorgeous. Created: 2005-03-15 Modified: [Return to Previous Screen]