Black And White Portrait Photography: A Creative Approach
March 21, 2025
The timeless appeal of black and white portraits means they remain as popular today as they were long before cameras could capture colour. In this guide, we're going to explore black and white portrait photography in detail, covering everything from setup and posing to post-production.
You'll be able to follow along step-by-step, allowing you to plan and execute your next portrait shoot confidently. Even if you're not ready to try black and white portraits just yet, you'll still find plenty of tips here that can help improve your portrait photography in general.
So, let's jump right in!
Perks of Black and White Portraits
If you have reservations about trying black and white portrait photography, here are some unique advantages and creative possibilities that monochrome can offer compared to colour portraits:
Timeless Appeal: Without colour cues to date them, black and white portraits feel timeless. Unlike colour images, which can reveal the era through trends in tones, makeup, or clothing, monochrome photographs often transcend specific time periods — perfect for a vintage or classic aesthetic.
Deeper Emotional Impact: Monochrome tones strip away visual distractions, allowing viewers to connect more directly with the subject’s expression and mood. The result is often a more powerful and emotionally compelling image.
Enhanced Texture and Detail: With colour removed, textures come forward — from skin and hair to clothing and background elements. These fine details add depth and character, giving your portraits a tactile, almost tangible quality.
Stronger Subject Focus: Black and white naturally directs the viewer’s gaze toward your subject. Expressions, poses, and storytelling take center stage, making it ideal for portraits where emotion and narrative are key.
Read more: Cinematic Portraits Tutorial: Lighting & Composition Guide
Key Camera Settings for Black and White Portraits
Now, let’s get your camera set up so that you can capture high-quality portraits without the disappointment of discovering your shots haven’t turned out quite how you'd hoped.
Shoot in RAW
Shooting in RAW is essential if you want professional results. RAW files have a wider dynamic range compared to JPEGs, giving you greater flexibility to recover details from shadows and highlights during the editing stage.
Shoot Slightly Underexposed
Aim to shoot slightly underexposed, especially in areas of the skin. Overexposure can irreversibly remove important skin details and textures. Ensure that brighter areas, particularly on the subject's face, maintain clear detail.
Don’t worry if some parts appear slightly dark; RAW files provide the ability to recover shadows effectively during post-processing.
Adjust Camera Settings Properly
Aperture: As with all portrait photography, use a wide aperture (such as f/1.8 or f/2.8) for flattering results. This creates a shallow depth of field, separating your subject from the background and drawing attention directly to them.
Shutter Speed: Choose your shutter speed based on the available light. Typically, a faster shutter speed is preferable to avoid motion blur or camera shake. Again, ensure your highlights remain properly exposed and retain details.
ISO: If your environment has sufficient lighting, keep your ISO low to avoid introducing noise into the image. In darker situations, increase the ISO cautiously. Be aware of your camera's noise-handling capability, as higher ISO values could affect overall image quality.
Shooting Monochrome vs Colour: What to Choose?
Some cameras offer the option to shoot directly in monochrome, showing your photos in black and white immediately. This can be helpful, as it allows you to visualise how shadows, contrast, and textures appear without colour distractions.
However, shooting in full colour gives you greater flexibility. You can easily convert to black and white later, maintaining full control over the tonal range and contrast adjustments during editing.
Also, if you are shooting with a client, they may also ask for colour versions of the image, so it will be useful to have that copy handy.
Read more: How to Create a Comfortable Atmosphere During Portrait Sessions
No Limits, Just Creativity – Pick a Plan & Start Editing
See PlansKey Factors for Black and White Portraits
There are a few key factors that set black and white portraits apart from regular colour photography. Let’s take a closer look at what you should focus on when shooting monochrome portraits:
Light & Contrast
One of the most striking features of black and white photography is the contrast between light and shadow. This contrast, known as chiaroscuro, can be achieved using both natural and studio lighting setups. By studying classic paintings, you can replicate certain timeless lighting techniques, such as Rembrandt lighting. Chiaroscuro creates drama and visual interest, and we’ll explore some creative ideas for this technique shortly.
Now, let’s explore chiaroscuro more closely:
Side-Lit Portraits | Position your subject with a studio light or near a window, allowing the light to fall across their face from one side. Experiment with angles, turning the subject's face slightly to observe how shadows are created. This technique produces bold portraits that highlight facial structure. |
Low-Key Portraits | You can selectively illuminate specific areas of your subject’s face or body using just one softbox or a dim, targeted light source. The limited lighting creates deep shadows, resulting in a dramatic and moody atmosphere. |
Light vs Dark Backgrounds | You can experiment by placing your subject against a completely dark or bright background. Illuminating only the subject creates strong visual contrast, focusing the viewer’s attention solely on their expression or pose. |
Composition
Composition plays a crucial role in black and white portraits. Without the distraction of colour, your composition becomes even more important. One especially effective approach is the use of negative space, which involves incorporating empty areas of the frame intentionally to highlight your subject and create compelling minimalist portraits.
Read more: Mastering the Pose: How to Guide Clients for Better Portraits
Here are some effective ways you can use it in your portraits:
Minimalist Portraits | Position your subject off-centre and allow generous negative space around them. The large empty space draws attention directly to your subject’s expression or pose, creating intriguing, calm, and aesthetically pleasing portraits. |
Environmental Minimalism | Seek out locations that offer wide-open spaces or modern architectural backdrops with clean lines, such as concrete walls or city skylines. By placing your subject within this empty space, the simplicity creates an impactful visual statement. |
Framing with Negative Space | You can combine negative space with framing techniques by placing your subject within architectural features, such as doorways, windows, or tunnel entrances. These structures naturally frame your subject, emphasising it further and creating visual interest. |
Texture & Detail
As mentioned earlier, textures and details become far more noticeable in black and white portraits. Pay close attention to your subject’s clothing textures, such as knitted fabrics, jackets, or scarves, as these will stand out significantly.
Similarly, you should focus on highlighting the texture of your subject’s skin, particularly in close-ups. These textures can be further enhanced during post-processing, which we'll discuss in the following section.
Post-Processing for Black and White Portraits
Whether you shoot your portraits in monochrome or colour, the following editing tips will help you achieve fantastic results. In this guide, we'll be using Aperty, a specialised portrait-editing software that does much of the heavy lifting for you. It doesn't require advanced editing skills to achieve professional-quality results.
Read more: Editing Portrait Photos Like a Pro with Aperty: A Step-by-Step Guide
Step 1: Converting to Black and White
One reason for choosing Aperty is its powerful Convert to B&W tool. This tool not only converts your image to monochrome but also allows you to individually adjust different colour tones to create your ideal contrast and depth.
Shooting in colour initially may be advantageous here because it gives you full control over the final monochrome aesthetic rather than being limited by your camera's built-in black-and-white style.
Step 2: Retouching
As mentioned previously, skin textures can appear more noticeable in black and white images. Traditional skin-smoothing in post-processing often leads to the loss of these essential textures.
Thankfully, Aperty is designed to preserve natural skin textures while smoothing out imperfections and removing blemishes. This feature allows you to achieve flawless yet realistic-looking skin, perfect for impactful black and white portraits.
Step 3: Highlighting Features
Highlighting key features of the face, such as eyes and teeth, can significantly enhance your black and white portrait. Aperty’s tools automatically identify and brighten these features, drawing viewers' attention directly to your subject’s expression. Eyes, in particular, can be made sharper and brighter, helping to anchor your image and deliver a powerful, striking effect.
Read more: A Guide To Eyes Retouching For Natural-Looking Photos
Step 4: Adding Creative Lighting
Aperty provides a unique option called Creative Light, which enables you to add and adjust artificial light sources within your image. You can freely position these sources around your subject and even modify their hue and saturation.
Although your final image will be black and white, the original colour adjustments will affect the monochrome tones, providing you with additional ways to enhance shadows, highlights, and contrasts creatively.
Don't be afraid to experiment with these editing features, introducing different shades to create unique visual effects and contrasts.
The Bottom Line
Black and white portraits remain a popular choice in modern photography due to their timeless and stylish aesthetic, capable of conveying emotion and mood effectively. Without the distraction of colour, the viewer’s focus is immediately drawn to the narrative and subject of your photo.
Experimenting with composition and lighting techniques, such as minimalism and chiaroscuro, will further emphasise contrasts between light and dark, enriching the emotional depth of your portraits. Finally, using editing software like Aperty allows precise control over the various shades and contrasts within your black and white images.
So, get creative, have fun, and produce portraits that stand the test of time!
