Iam a beginner in this area so I will take any advice I can get. I hope to take my pictures outside, however risky that might be, I prefer the outdoors. The person I am taking pictures of is mexican and very dark. I have an Olympus OM-10 35mm that is automatic. Thanks.

-- Sarah Ledford (SBLedford@aol.com), October 13, 1999

Answers

I think outside is just great. Especially if you can find/make an area that consists of open shade. Unless you want to make it part of the composition, you might want to stay away from 'speckled' light, like you would get from the sun shining through a tree. I do get surprised a lot by how powerful the light is, even in the shade. For example, if you ar photographing on an open porch, in the shade, you might not notice it, but a lot of times the lower half of the porch might get significantly more light than the upper (torso, face) part of the porch. Or the side light might be extremely strong. Hunt around with your meter to see what the readings are in different parts of your 'picture.' The darker skin should not be a problem as long as you don't try to 'contrast' it next to a very light skin tone. You might want to use a 'gray card' to get your exposure.

-- Christian Harkness (chris.harkness@eudoramail.com), October 15, 1999.

Try a slightly overcast day or one with clouds and shoot when the sun is on the edge of a cloud and you see the shadow edge soften. Watch for separation around the shadows so they don't morph into a midtone blob (with white folk you watch for highlight areas losing seperation). In otherwords, don't count on color to make the body stand out from the background, think tonal value not RGB...t

Well now that I think about it, "partial" nudes might look good blending a body (part) into a similar tonal value with a different texture... just be mindful (you are using b&w, or am I jumping big conclusions?)...t

-- tom meyer (twm@mindspring.com), October 17, 1999.