I need to take some black&white photos of some friends of mine, headshots to be exact. They were just signed to a local agency that requires this but they cannot afford a professional photographer so I volunteered to take them. What should I do in terms of lighting and can I use any light(home lamps)? Does it make a difference if I'm lighting an African-American as opposed to a Caucasian? Also, what type of quality film should I use? Speed? It has to be indoors.

Quan.

-- quan evans (sanquan@swbell.net), January 21, 1998

Answers

For several examples of commercial head shots, take a look at the dr. wood photos in this months' top ten list of B&W World.

Basically the purpose of these headshots are to give potential employers a good clear look at the model's face. Since these photos are the model's resume, they need to make the model look as good as possible.

My suggestions:

Use medium format if at all possible. If you have only 35mm, use a film in the ISO 100 to 125 range or slower and put the camera on a good sturdy tripod.

Use a longer than normal lens. If 35mm film, use an 85mm or longer lens, if 6x6 a 120 to 135mm lens can work well.

Keep the lighting soft, and keep the light sources slightly above the lens level. Normal home lighting generally doesn't meet this characteristic, and is rarely bright enough for reasonable exposure times. A very good choice, used by painters for centuries, is a large north facing window. It is possible to do a good job with hard/contrasty light sources, but it is considerably harder.

Watch how skin and hair tones compare with the background. Don't let them merge together. You can use the same lighting with white or black people, but you might want different backgrounds. In either case, the background's color or texture should not merge with the skin and hair color and texture of your model. This is obviously a judgement call, but watch for it when you're setting up your shot.

-mike

-- Mike Rosenlof (mrosenlof@qualcomm.com), January 22, 1998.