B&w

Black and white often requires harder lighting for the sake of strong contrast, due to the lack of color contrast contributing to the image. Notice I said harder, as you can choose the variation. It does not have to be an open face just blasting in someones face.
 
Steve Laramie said:
Do you guys prefer mostly soft or hard lighting for black and white?
Click to expand...

I tend to 'soft/defuse' lighting for humans... All of my 'real(tm)' film black and white is still photography, but for humans I've tended to mostly available light, which is typically 'soft' relative to studio lights. The Wife who shoots almost only humans, will almost always use available light or strobes with a big softbox.

I will probably continue that with my film making, as the short that I did a while ago, and have been putting in various fests, I transformed into monochrome, neutral grey/black/white, and lit with a large difusion screen in front of the 'hard' Lowells I had rented.

If you look at 'classic' B&W films you will frequently notice hard-ish' light for shots where the people are at a distance, and the 'close up' will have diffusion either on the lens, on the light, or both. Even 'men' get a bit of diffusion as well on occasion.

Of course they were also using low ISO rated stock, which is contrastier than a faster stock.
 
It depends on who or what I'm lighting, but I tend to light men with hard light more so than women. Hard light accentuates facial features, which for men makes them look more distinguished. For women, I usually want the opposite effect - I want their facial features hidden, so I use soft light.
 
Finnegan said:
It depends on who or what I'm lighting, but I tend to light men with hard light more so than women. Hard light accentuates facial features, which for men makes them look more distinguished. For women, I usually want the opposite effect - I want their facial features hidden, so I use soft light.
Click to expand...

+1.
 
As with color, it all has to do with mood and character. There are differences, of course, because as said, you have only black and white and shades of grey to work with, but hard shadows and soft shadows largely lend the same feelings and moods in color or in B/W. So, a gruff character is well-served by hard light in either case; a soft character by soft light, etc.
 
Watch the TCM channel... great education there. Like David says, it's a combination of both. Seems the shape of the lighting and the way characters move in and out of it is important too.
 
In my B+W stills days I came to realised that softer light (narrow DR) could be printed on harder (more contrasty paper) and revealed wonderful micro details that would have been out of gamut with hard light

light soft, crank up the contrast (IMO)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top