There is nothing more appealing than a simple photograph and one of the best and simplest ways to do this is to take a photograph with a black background. Portraits are invariably much better with a simple, single coloured black background and if you turn the photos into monochrome this accentuates the greys and the whites in the face. The photograph of my Granny’s hands were taken soon after her passing, I placed a rose in her hands and the black cloth behind shows the texture and structure of a life well lived, and the black back ground accentuates this well.
Not just portraits of people but of pets and photos of plants are special. Plants with a black background are often used as “specimen shots” and look really special and of course you don’t pick or dig the plants up, just take the shot in the field.
I should add that some people are totally obsessed with black backgrounds so if you go onto Instagram and look at black background you will see more than 200,000 photos with this tag, mostly simple portraits, although there is also a big following for people who take food photos with black backgrounds.
In this short article, we are going to look at the black backgrounds in wildlife photography, how to make them and how this can turn difficult photographic opportunities into a creative fun time.
As with all photography, this is all about the light and how you utilize the light. Unlike a portrait photographer, wildlife photographers are somewhat limited by the fact that you cannot run up behind the snarling tiger and drop a perfect black background sheet from the tree behind it and then rush back to the safety of your safari vehicle and take a photograph. Please don’t try it – much safer for all if you learn to use the light with your camera.
In terms of what camera to use there is a great advantage of using a mirrorless camera because what you see through the viewfinder is what you get as a photograph. With the normal DSLR you can play around with the settings take a few trial shots and then with a bit of chimping decide if you need to dial down your compensation and go -1 stop or more.
Point exposure: harsh conditions are your creative friend
If you are a wildlife photographer and been on safari in Africa, India, Central America or other places you will know that you must get out early to capture the golden light, a period of little more than 15 minutes when the sun breaks the horizon and everything is bathed in the most glorious golden light. Once it is over, you rush around trying to utilize every drop of good light to capture nice images and by 11:00 am the conditions become so harsh that you might as well go back to the camp for some lunch and a rest. Of course, the animals also slow down at this time seeking the shade and their activity levels drop, so not much is happening, and you may well justify this to yourself that the sunlight is so harsh with very dark shadows and very bright overburnt highlights that getting a good exposure is just about impossible. There is some truth in that, but – and this is the but you need to embrace – now is the time to put on your creative hat and use what light you have to accentuate aspects.
Put your camera on aperture priority with a shallow depth of field (f4), low ISO and a single spot exposure and focus on the part of the body in the sun, usually the eye. With such good Denoise software these days made by Topaz (Denoise AI) why not set your aperture low and speed high and leave ISO on automatic – seems such an easy way to go even if your ISO goes shooting over 6400. The exposure will be set for the eye and the rest of the background will be underexposed and black so the subject looks great.
Some of the most difficult places to get good photographs are in deep rainforest where the animals are moving between harsh beams of sun light into areas that are almost totally dark. Once again – wait till the head comes out of the shadows and set your exposure and focus on the eye while it is in the sun and you will have a creative shot even if you can only see they eye and part of the head.
Be ready to dial down your exposure and quite often you need to go -0.7 stops or even as low as -2.0 stops and this will make the image snap in with a beautiful black background. There is no hard and set rule and I just go straight to -0.7 and go back further as need be – just taking a range of shots at different exposure compensations can get those creative juices running and you see things in an image you hadn’t expected.
The black background arises because you have a beam of good strong light that hits the animal at the eye or side of the face and gives you an opportunity to make an interesting and insightful portrait. You can take this further and be creative – maybe using artificial light or a flash with a snoot on the end to produce a focused beam of light.
The options are endless, the creativity exciting and the results rewarding. You will also find yourself looking for black backgrounds whenever you are out, sometimes these are simply dark shadows in vegetation, and water often provides a beautiful black background for waterbirds. I have even used the black of a railway embankment as a black backdrop when the light hits a bird.
Back-lit
While we are always taught the first rule of photography is to take your photo with the light coming over your shoulder, this is a rule made to be broken. Take your photos straight into the light so that a halo of light appears around the animal to accentuate the shape of the animal – much like Picasso would use 1 or 2 simple lines to capture the essence of a person or an animal you can use the light to expose the animal in a special beauty. As with the beam of sunlight in the rainforest, your exposure is not set for the dark side of the animal but set to expose for the highlights. Let all the dark parts of the photo go black and get the highlighted outline of the animal exposed correctly. With some animals, such as Red-footed boobies or frigate birds, the sun will come through the red feet or the pouch and you should bring this into focus leaving a line of light to accentuate parts of the body. The trick is don’t fight the exposure just expose for the highlights and let the background go black and then give it a bit more. In all of this, it is the wise use of light that creates what appears to be a black background.
Post processing
Not all your black background photos are going to come out of the camera perfect for posting and many will need some processing.
Wiggle your curves: the first thing you should always do is use the luminar curve to accentuate the blacks and the highlights – make the curve S shaped and experiment.
Contrast: play with the contrast slider carefully to just see how this helps.
Blacks: play with the black slider to make some of the blacks consistently black with no greys and take out the complexities in the background.
Layers: use layers to reduce exposure of backgrounds a little bit and even desaturate areas while use a layer on the face to bring up sharpness and clarity a little.
Background removers: some software even include background removers (e.g. Luminar) which will make the process even easier. In other software (Capture One, Photoshop) its pretty easy to select the background as a layer and play around with it.
Finally consider turning your image into monochrome – you will lose any golden light or colour in the highlights, but it can make a cracking image. Most of all have fun and go and play – break the rules and be creative.
