Duotone and Rap

I get asked often about my duotone conversions and what process I use to get them the way they are. So, I thought I would make today's topic about how I address duotone pictures.

But first...

Rap music - I've never really been a big fan of the genre (due to the vulgarities), however, I came across these underground rappers and really took a liking to them...



Some of their other stuff gets political and it just seems that underground rappers have so much more significant things to say than the mainstream stuff you hear over the radio... I absolutely hate turning on the radio - rather sit there listening to the buzz of my heater.

Anyway, back to photography. First and foremost, I think that many people make things duotone (black and white) just for the same of making it duotone. Some try to hide noise, color fringing, or bad exposures and some just like everything to look like old B/W film. My approach consists of a more balanced outlook. The key element to developing a great duotone picture is to know what types of pictures "work" as a duotone. My criteria consists of two major points - lighting and essence. As far as lighting goes, I rarely ever make hard lit pictures duotone - only ones with soft gradations of skin tones and soft light (unless of course the clients specifically asked for something outside my criteria to be duotone). Next, I look for an essence to the picture - either a direct connection with the subject (like a deep eye contact) or an elegantly natural moment.

Once I find the pictures I'm looking for, I start the post-processing. All my duotone conversions are handled in my RAW editor - Photoshop is only used for sharpening or skin smoothening if need be. I personally like to have my conversions more on the high contrast side with deep shadows. Depending on one's taste, it either works or it doesn't - just like everything else.