Hurrell-Style Black and Whites

Dear Professional Photo Critique,

“This was from a studio session last week. I used two Flashpoint strobes 300w at 1/64 power. I use a Nikon 5100 with a Sigma 18mm to 300mm lens. This was shot at 70mm 1/200 at f/6 ISO 100. Post production was with Affinity Photo and the NIK plugin Viveza. Thank you for your time in reviewing my work!”

Thank you for your submission to Professional Photo Critique Mark! I’m so glad you’ve found our online photography critique and submitted something for us to take a look at. Your willingness to receive some feedback from other professionals will not only give you another perspective but give other photographers out there who read this something to think about also.

Before I address anything technical, I’d like to mention some things you could have done to improve this shot before you even got your lights out and squeezed the shutter. One thing that often happens to me is that I get so excited to shoot with new gear or a new person that I completely forget about the concept of the shot. A concept is sort of like a mission statement for a business or blueprints for an architect. The blueprints give the architect an idea of how the building is supposed to look before construction starts. As photographers, our “blueprints” often take the shape of mood boards or storyboards. This serves as a way to keep the shoot and helps everyone stay on the same page visually.

I would love to see your storyboard for this shot if you have one. The image you submitted looks very similar to the style that George Hurrell sought after in his work. The reason I mentioned the storyboard or concept above is because I think if you’d had a more clear idea going in, some of the technical issues I see could have been avoided.

For instance, you’re photographing a subject wearing black against a black background. If you aren’t careful, this could lead to the subject blending into the background. If her wardrobe doesn’t make her stand out then you’ll have to use light to make she does. In this image both of her arms frame her torso and they are both illuminated. This at least gives us a sense of the shape and form of her torso and her blouse but it’s tough to make out because the black tone is so deep. When conceptualizing this shoot, you might have used a lighter-colored blouse knowing that you’d be shooting against such a dark background. I’ve included an image below to demonstrate all the areas in the shot that fell into a complete black with no detail. I’m pretty sure Affinity has this alert as well. I’ve never been a believer in the idea that an image cannot have areas of pure white and pure black but I think areas of the subject should rarely fall into that category or it should be used deliberately.

I raised the exposure and increased the blacks and shadows in Photoshop and it revealed that the subject’s blouse has some amazing texture that was being lost.

However, by increasing the exposure, I understood why you wanted everything to fall into pure black. The background starts to show when you increase the exposure. I think it was a smart idea on your part to hide the background in black due to the fact that you can see the folds in it and these are distracting. Opting to have the entire background fall into black also helped generate a more sophisticated and polished shot.

When photographing with a background I often suggest a rule of thumb that the subject should be two feet per fstop from the background. This distance helps make it so that light intended for your subject doesn’t inadvertently spill onto the background. Distance from the background will also increase the look of separation and also allow you to put lights behind the subject that don’t hit the background. Using this rule of thumb, your subject would have been 12 feet off the background. This would have ensured that the background would have been out of focus and not competing with the subject and also it would have made it so that light intended for your subject wouldn’t have fallen onto the background.

The model is beautiful and it looks like you have established a good rapport with her. That is fantastic and one of the things that photographers need to constantly consider. A subject that is comfortable will often yield a more engaging photo. The composition is a little counter intuitive and creates some tension that is probably not intended based on the smile on the model. The tension I’m referring to is the psychic line theory of composition. This suggests that, as humans, we tend to follow the gaze of the subject when we view a photo. As Western readers, we enter the photograph from the left (like we read a book) and encounter negative space. We traverse this space until we arrive at your subject. We then look at her eyes in order to tell us how to feel, what’s happening in the photo and where to look next. Her eyes direct our gaze to the right and consequently, out of the shot. If you want the viewer’s gaze to stay in the photo longer, maybe position the subject so that she’s looking at the negative space. This will also give the subject space to breathe. She seems a little claustrophobic positioned so close the edge of the frame.

The last thing we need to address, and probably most importantly, is your light. Whenever I see a subject the first thing I look at is their eyes. I’m not looking to see what color or shape they are. I’m looking to see what light source or sources were used to illuminate them and where those light sources were in relation to the subject. Basically, I’m looking for the quality of light and the direction of that light. Small light sources, far away from the subject usually generate reflections or “catchlights” that are smaller. These are also usually harsher light sources with more contrast and deeper shadows. Larger light sources create a larger catchlight in the eye. These are usually closer to the subject and have more diffusion and are softer.

If we look closely at your subject’s eyes, we can reverse engineer how many light sources you used, where they were placed in relation to the subject and if they were soft or harsh lights.

The face was illuminated by a light source to camera right which was straight at her, judging by the catchlight being dead center in her eye. When light enters the pupil I refer to this as “polluting the pupil.” It means that the direction of the light flat lit her. To avoid this, you can place the light higher and to the right so that the light wraps around the subject. In this way, you can use light to accentuate her shape and form. It looks like you’ve added another light to camera left. I can only speculate that you noticed that she was falling into black and correctly decided to add an additional light to prevent this.

I really enjoy the black and white treatment you applied to this image! I think that was exactly where’d I’d go with it as well. Like I stated above, this reminds me of a George Hurrell Lighting attempt. Here are some samples below to give you some inspiration! His work was characterized by harsh light sources.

And here are some of his behind the scenes (BTS) shots so you can understand the proximity and direction of his lights. Pay attention to his top light that he puts right out of camera and angles it down onto the face. He often creates a “butterfly” or “loop” lighting pattern. This pattern is achieved strictly through the position of his lights.