Black/White Portraits

[ang]

This may be a stupid question . . .,

When taking B/W portraits indoors under artificial lighting, does the "type" of lighting source or color temperature play any role?

I'm assuming, if I'm using B/W film the "color" of the light will not matter?

 

[Corry]

I could be wrong, but I believe I recently read something somewhere that said with b/w, temperature doesn't matter.

 

[Christie Photo]

I think you'll be fine with most light sources in this case. (There's some residue in the back of my brain regarding use of a green filter and flesh tones in black and white portraiture.)

I do wonder more about the direction of light. Are you planning on using available light? If so, is it ceiling mounted light? That might be more of a concern.

Good luck! And, always, have fun!

-Pete

 

[GerryDavid]

This may be a stupid question . . .,

When taking B/W portraits indoors under artificial lighting, does the "type" of lighting source or color temperature play any role?

I'm assuming, if I'm using B/W film the "color" of the light will not matter?

I think it does matter, if your picky enough.

Each color has its own shade/tone in the picture, and you use filters to give more contrast between certain colors, so if your using true b&w film, and filters to get the effect you want, the filteres may not behave the way you think they will if the color ballance is different than what the film is set to.

At least thats my guess. This is why I like to do b&w from a color digital image, no need for color filteres, you have the equivalent to 16.7 million gradient filters in ps. :0)

 

[Magoo]

Color of light does not matter in terms of whether you use florecent, tungsten, or daylight balanced the way color films react to it. you are not going to notice a tunsten hue on a black and white film. the filters however affect much contrast you want to capture. yellow being the least contrast, then orange, red etc. Also and I could be wrong but I think if something in the picture is the same color as the filter it will come out lighter lke if you were using a yellow filter and someone was wearing a yellow shirt. If I am wrong please correct me.

Magoo

 

[AIRIC]

These were taken with a 60W bulb from a nearby lamp.

Eric

 

[Kodan_Txips]

The differences in colour temperature don't matter a lot in B & W, but there are times when you may have to be careful.

Best example I can think of is when taking a portrait of a teenager. Any green in the light may have the effect of accentuating acne, if it is present. Using a strong green filter or light source would turn the spots into black blobs, and may well worsen other things like bloodshot eyes, broken capillaries in the nose of an enthusiastic wine taster, stuff like that.

A blueish light can wash out blue eyes, sometimes making them too pale.

And so on.

 

[elsaspet]

Beautiful shots AiRic!

 

[Magoo]

blemishes are easily corrected while using makeup. It's been a while but I think that if you use blue under the foundation it will take out the red of the pimple etc. Bobbie Brown and Kevin aushon have some really amazing books on makup and what can be done. They were able to make Gweneth paltrow look like a dead ringer for James Dean and make hillary swank look just like anne margeret.

Magoo