Question for the photogs here
 

1: Buy a light meter.

2: Don't shoot whores who have pimps.

Why would shooting black girls be any different than any other girl? What is the problem you are having?

Pimps are annoying and a complete waste of time. They make unreasonable demands and you can't tell them to fuck off because you're afraid they pull something.

lotion or oil up their skin.

:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh you kill me.

A pro photographer calls them "agents"
Use Light meter and proper lights/Soft box

Stick to redbones!

Darker skin requires more light than light skin... kind of obvious really. Make sure you're metering the model's skin properly.

Those of us who shoot interracial know that a dark-skinned model and a very light-skinned model together can be a nightmare to light and shoot.

Meter off of a %50 gray card. Sounds like you are using on camera flash. Camera are dumb and try to make everything %50 gray. get some studio lights and a light meter or use exposure compensation to compensate for darker skinned girls

Experiment, Experiment, Experiment.

http://bluesky-web.com/broadcastvide...mplextion.html
http://bluesky-web.com/skin.htm

Wow, I'm giving you a good one. White balance your camera a little warmer than you normally would. It gives them a nice carmel look and lightens up their skin if it's really drastically dark. Don't open up or over light too much or the skin will look ashy. Better toto expose perfect or slightly darker than too light. Now here's the stumper, what do you do when it's a white guy with a black girl???

*Get to know your cameras display, everyone is different. shoot some pics that look absolutely perfect on your cameras display, download the pics to your computer and look at them on your display. Do they look even close? My camera is slightly darker on its display that what it looks like one my laptop. Make sure your monitor is color calibrated very neutral. Usually out of the box is best. If your using a laptop, set the brightness @ 50 % dont adjust the color or brightness. So fat my mac laptop has been the best standard overall for what most clients will see. Find out if the client is using them for internet or print or both. Find out what they prefer for their outputs. adobe, sRGB? All questions that will affect the colors of you final product and will intern affect skin tones. Alot to think about bro. Or just put it on auto (lol)

Shameless Interracial 101... lovez it.

But totally different! (lol) It's actually not such a bad thing if you have good male talent. That's all what it boils down to. That and a good make up artist & hope the girl doesn't show up with Staph infection or her skin looking like swiss cheese because she's been out doing meth all week. :thumbsup

:1orglaugh:1orglaugh

double knee slapper

Then he can't shoot anyone in the biz (lol)

Thanks for all the good advice. I used the lotion on her but I didn't use my lights at all. I will experiment more like some said. Thanks.

You need to light black or dark skin girls to get a good effect. If it's amateur then the action is the most important thing. It depends the effect you're looking for. Amateur, middle market or Playboy styles.

Some very good advice here, no one mentioned back lighting though. Still some great advice here.

Never.

I may have wanted to smack you a time or two though. :winkwink:

Oiling up their skin is cool but then you also have to deal with highlights on her ass (I love it outside) Not to mention if your shooting in a nice house then you have to wipe her down really good to not get it all over the place. And as far as using a light meter goes that's taking things way to far! Unless you are using lights where you have a specific light ratio a normal light meter will no where come close to giving you a meter reading that you can plug into you digital without making visible / histogram adjustments. Next time you have your meter out set it to Iso 100, hold you lightmeter dome away from the sun, take a reading and plug it exactly into your camera & you will see something that is nowhere near the reading you need for the picture. Even though meter's read for middle grey it will not give you your exposure with a subject standing there. Your meter is only as good as the person using it & if you're not used to it, it's a waste of time. That's the great thing about digital. You're not burning money like using film or polaroid.

And as far as flash goes this was a really funny thing for me to get a handle on. The whore TTL thing which works amazingly with film is a whole nother animal in digital. Film had such a latitude that flash was more of a forgiving source. The TTL feature is a Through The Lens metering system which means the camera is using the lens focusing on your subject to figure out how much flash power to emit. It also takes into consideration what percentage of you frame / metering area is dark or light. So if you have a black guy wearing a white t-shirt it's usually gonna expose for the white t-shirt which is very reflective. So more ofter than not the picture will be dark. Just like a hand held meter, your TTL thinks the white is a middle grey so it usually will even make your whites a little dark. The best solution for using flash that I have found is put it on manual. Take a picture if its light out without the flash. Set your shutter speed (under 250 usually because of your flash sync speed) and f-stop manually, then take it one click darker than you normally would have your picture & add your flash. Figure out the approximate distance you will be taking your pics and adjust your flash power to the correct setting & snap away. When the flash doesn't fire it will be close enough that you can correct the exposure in post (so you dont loose any pics) the bad thing about this is blurring, be careful when you settings are so close to daylight settings, if you shutter speed is under 125 then your probably gonna get some motion. Your flash stops people (freezes them) but if there is light in the picture already then they wont be frozen. High ISO's suck with this outside. Hope this helped? It's all a delicate balance. You just have to find out what works for you. Alot of photographers do stuff I would never do but it works for them. All that matters is then end product. If you shoot on a piece of shit camera but you get something special then fuck what everyone else is doing!!! That doesn't matter, are your clients happy? Are you happy with your pics? Does you camera suit you? I have 2 Canon 1DS's that I love, 2 Canon G9's for Shanes World and amateur stuff (also as a back up for my 2 1DS's & I shoot ID pics with em) I own 2 leica's and a bunch of 35mm point & shoot camera's that I love. I really wanna get the Pentax k200D & Leica M8 next. Shooting should be fun. Enjoy the ride.

*Wow, that was a rant!