Noire; A tale of black skin and hard light| photos from an editorial project.

A few weeks ago, I linked up with my good friend Yankee to work on an editorial project; a fashion editorial project precisely. I hadn't done one in recent times, so I was glad to hop on the project with him. The session was pure fire. I kept gushing over the results from the session. The outfits were okay and all, but Nicole, the model, stunned me the most. I couldn't get over her skin.

It's not pride but it's a thing that dark-skinned girls rock 😉. However, Nicole's was just amazing. It felt like she was glowing. We couldn't resist the urge, so we decided to create headshots. To make the photos pop the way we wanted them to, we decided to use hard light. Hardligting was going to produce the contrast and drama we wanted.

Photographing Nicole aside from Ada has been one of my easiest sessions this year. Nicole just like Ada came serving looks, and I didn't necessarily need to direct her. It's pain when I have to direct the model always. I understand that to get the photos the way I want, I have to direct them(models). But it's great to have something to work with. Some "models" just come around and stand still; it's sad. Well, I was lucky Nicole wasn't such type of a model.

Setting up lighting for the shoot was pretty much straightforward. We set up an ad600, with no diffuser. However, there was a cone around the bulb to help with direction. After setting up the light, we got to shooting and we were done with the headshots under 35 minutes. Like I said earlier, the results were amazing. Check them out;

Skin retouching is my least favorite thing to do, but I know I can do something tangible when the skill is needed; just like the photos above. What I'm trying to say is; don't judge the photograph by my poor retouching. I think overall those are fantastic images. But what do you think? Let me know in the comments section. Thank you!