Shooting Black and White Portraits

Take your black-and-white portraiture skills to the next level.

In this portrait and beauty photography workshop, recorded LIVE, you’ll see the step-by-step process you need to light and shoot professional portrait and beauty images.

Starting at the very beginning, from choosing his background and selecting his props, professional photographer Karl Taylor shows how he achieves these stunning black-and-white portraits. Follow along as he develops an image from scratch and explains the thought process behind each creative decision.

Working with a variety of modifiers, Karl explains the effects, pros and cons of each while also demonstrating how to carefully control light to achieve dramatic movie-style images. With the help of his models, Dave and Evie, Karl demonstrates the effect of different shooting angles, light positions, reflectors, soft and hard light, and also teaches you how to combine different types of light in order to achieve the best possible results.

In this class:

  • How to take portrait and beauty photographs
  • Lighting modifiers and their effects
  • Effective modifiers for portrait and beauty photographers
  • The best lighting for male and female subjects
  • How to take black and white images
  • The inverse square law
  • How to control shadows
  • Working with and balancing multiple lights
  • Five lighting setups for portrait photography

If you enjoy this class, be sure to check out our Portrait section, where Karl covers the theory of light in greater detail and demonstrates multiple lighting setups for creative portraits.

Questions? Please post them in the comments section below.

© Karl Taylor

Comments

  1. steveathome

    Hi Karl, Great to see these shot constructed from scratch. Had you also chosen to use a rim/kicker light on the male model, would you have chosen to have lit from the key side or the shadow side?

    1. Hi Steve, on the male model seated I would have used a very very light one on the shadow side. On the male one standing I used one on the hair already so wouldn’t have done more with that one. But to be honest I don’t set rules I just look at it and go with what I feel will work. Cheers Karl.

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