Black Light Portrait Photography

Photography Tips  •  Portrait Photography

Professional advertising photographer, Julius Ise had long held the desire to attempt black light photography. Black light photography involves shooting subjects under ultra violet lights and excluding most if not all, visible light. The results are often highly colored and powerful looking images:

Using special fluorescent colors and make up often used in the theatre industry, Julius’s models were given the look of African warriors. In order to make sure the correct look was created, the make up artists worked under the same UV lights to be used in the shoot. The studio set up was as follows:

• Two 400-watt UV lights positioned to the front left and front right of the model, giving an even light over the model’s face.
• To separate the model from the dark background Julius positions one 500w normal light with a red gel, directly behind the model. This gave an interesting red keylight effect to the models
• The images were shot at 1/60^th of a second f5.6 on a Nikon D3s and using a Nikon 85 f1.4 lens and the ISO setting used was 1000.

Portrait Photography with a Black Light

The final result is a collection of very striking and colorful images and an excellent demonstration of the effects of black light photography.

For tutorials on other types of photography effects, check out Trick Photos 2.0