Advice re: a new basement studio for black and white portraits

joannalhudson

I've had several friends ask if I could take pictures of their newborns in the popular black and white "tiny sleeping baby curled up in mom's hand with a black background" style, which I love but have never done before. Does anyone have experience doing this and could you give me some pointers pretty please?

I have a lot of space in my basement and want to create a makeshift studio. In addition to the black drape, can you recommend what kind of lighting I should set up?

Would appreciate ANY guidance. THANKS!!

Shay Stephens

Keep the light close to the subject and far away from the background to get truly black backgrounds instead of gray-ish. By keeping the light that way, the falloff from bright to dark will be big enough that light spill on the background won't overpower the blackness of it.

And a soft light would be complementary, so a softbox or umbrella or diffusion screen would be good. But you could experiment with hard light too (no softbox), especially if you want a contrasty B&W.