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Black and White Studio Portraits – Arkansas Editorial Photographer

In May, I was asked by AY Magazine to photograph 3 Northwest Arkansas individuals for their Powerful Men series. This is my fourth year to work on this series, and it is one that I always look forward to shooting.

Portrait of Mike Malone with Northwest Arkansas Council for AY Magazine's powerful men. Photo by Beth Hall (Beth Hall)Mike Malone with the Northwest Arkansas Council.

This year had a little twist to it though… I usually shoot environmental portraits on location, but this year they asked for black and white studio portraits. I had the studio part covered since I recently opened a studio on the downtown Fayetteville square, but the B&W made me a bit nervous for many reasons:

  1. I haven’t shot B&W since I picked up color film almost 20 years ago.
  2. Digital.
  3. I know the difference between a good and a bad b/w photo.
  4. I’ve never really liked anything I converted to black and white.
  5. I always want to do a great job for my clients.

I spent quite a bit of time researching black and white portraits to figure out how I wanted my final images to look. I was excited to already know the 3 people before photographing them because it helped me figure out my lighting, background and posing ahead of time based on their personalities and physical stature. I pulled inspirational images for each shoot and played in the studio beforehand to get things tailored for each individual. Overall it was a very fun project, and I really enjoyed the creative process.

Portrait of Cameron Smith with Cameron Smith for AY Magazine's powerful men. Photo by Beth Hall (Beth Hall)Cameron Smith with Cameron Smith and Associates