10 Tutorials On Powerful Black And White Portrait Photography

Black and white photography captures emotions, adds drama and depth. If you want to add a range of wonderful black and white photography portraits to your portfolio take a look at these tutorials and learn how to create amazing black and white portraits. Many of these tutorials are suitable for beginners as well!

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1. 5 Tips For Stunning Black And White Portrait Photography

Digital Photography School offers excellent tips and tricks when it comes to b&w portraits. They cover composition, tonal contrast, texture, capturing emotions, and also post-processing routine for portraits. This is a very versatile article suitable for any portrait photographer.

Photo by Karina Tess

2. How To Photograph Dramatic Black and White Portraits With Just ONE SPEEDLIGHT (Video)

This video will help you understand better how to shoot stunning b&w portraits in a studio if you're on a budget and can't invest in strobes and other elaborate pieces of lighting. Using just one speedlight doesn't have to be a problem if you know what you're doing!

3. A Guide To Black And White Portraits

The tutorial provides all the information about the setup, the necessary camera settings, how to take the photo, and how the model should pose. The information on camera settings and a simple lighting map will be useful especially for beginner-lever photographers.

Photo by Seth Doyle

4. 15 Tips For Stunning Black And White Photography

Improve Photography is a website with many tips and tutorials and a must-read for photography lovers, professional or amateur. This tutorial offers 15 general tips about black and white photography, but they can be applied in portrait photography too. You will find interesting advice like how to adjust your camera, how to find the perfect location, and which software to use to process your photographs.

5. Dramatic Black And White Portraiture (Video)

Gary Fong is a longtime professional photographer and has a very interesting and informative YouTube channel where he gives advice about photography. In this video Gary Fong does a step-by-step guide to achieving dramatic low key portrait in a simple room with a chair, using his “Studio To Go” kit, a simple, single duffel bag outfitted with all of the equipment needed to get a dramatic range of “looks” anywhere, anytime. With or without the equipment it is a great video to watch and learn something new.

6. How To Create A Dramatic Black And White Portrait In Photoshop (Video)

Another great photographer uses Youtube to show us how to convert an image in black and white. In this particular video, Antwon Maxwell shows you his method of creating dramatic black and white images. This will allow you to get great highlights and shadow tones in the portrait.

7. How To Create Dramatic Black And White Portraits On iPhone

You don't need a DSLR or a mirrorless camera in order to capture breathtaking portraits in black and white. If you often upload portraits to your Instagram profile, this tutorial will be really useful because it focuses on both shooting and processing portraits on an iPhone. You will also find some great suggestions in terms of B&W filters.

Photo by Olu Famule

8. How To Edit Amazing Black & White Portraits In Lightroom (Video)

Photoshop is not the only software for retouching your photographs. There is also Lightroom which allows viewing, organizing, and retouching a large number of digital images. Lightroom offers many different ways to convert your images to black and white – in this tutorial, you will see the basic conversion of a color photo to black and white. This is a super simple tutorial perfect for beginners.

9. How-To: Shoot Expressive Black-and-White Portrait Photos

In this article, three famous photographers share their strategies for black and white portraits. Ima Mfon, Sandro Baebler, and Melanie Dunea share their feelings and tips about black and white photography and offer advice to those who want to shoot glamorous portraits. You will also find out what equipment and software they use.

Photo by Daniel Lezuch

10. 40 Free Black-And-White Presets For Lightroom To Convert Photos To Monochrome

Using presets can speed up your editing process and help you learn how to fine-tune your monochrome portraits. This is a terrific and comprehensive list of free presets you can experiment with. My favorite is Vintage Black And White Lightroom Film Presets.

Photo by Ilona Panych

Further Reading:

  1. 6 Tips To Capturing Better Eyes in Portrait Photography
  2. Black and White Quotes
  3. 5 Mistakes Beginners Make In Portrait Photography And How To Avoid Them
  4. 5 Surprisingly Simple Tips For Stunning Black And White Portraits
  5. 5 Free E-Books on Photographing Candid Portraits
  6. Bite Size Tips – Capturing Classic Portraiture Compositions
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About Author

Jasenka is a photographer with a background in web design. You can find out more about her on her website, see some of her newest images at 500px or get to know her better here.

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