I emphasize this topic because it’s so often an issue with the kinds of images students make. You obviously must be able to photograph anyone and everyone effectively. Heterogenous groups are a particular challenge. (And it’s not just dark skintones — very light skin can easily get over-exposed and blown out — especially with shaved heads!) The point isn’t skin shade per se — it’s the variation of light and dark in the same image. And you usually want to optimize the image for faces.
Here’s good advice:
Ignore his technical advice and concentrate on what he says about background and light.
Often the solution is simply to be more *aware* of where people are placed relative to the light, **especially their faces.**
Also, remember that the faces of people who are closer to the camera will be more visible, so sometimes you just want to move some people closer to the camera to make up for the ways that exposure may obscure their faces.
Examples:
The woman on the left is a little over-exposed. We don’t know how pale she actually is.
This woman’s face would have been more visible if she weren’t backlit — the background problem — or if her face were not in the baby’s shadow. (You probably didn’t notice that she’s in the baby’s shadow, did you?) Her lovely expression gets a little lost.
The hat on the guy helps here — shades his face — except his eyes are shaded a little too much. (This can be fixed easily in Lightroom.)
This is fun, but the dark-skinned guys in dark clothes the doorway in the back disappear. And bet that light-skinned woman with the white sleeves and the light-skinned guy in the fluorescent green and white away from the flash!
This is a really hard location for mixed skintones, with such bright surroundings. The photographer did exposure compensation at +1/2 (see the EXIF) — which helped with the faces and the curtain in the background but blew out the architectural details on either side of the curtain.
A less contrast-y location — even the same place with less exterior light — would be better for a mixed group. I’d move the woman with the dreadlocks to the front, putting her closer to the camera, to make her face bigger in the image and more visible. The girl in the front row on the left could move back. Most of the light is coming from the left — the guy in the back row, on the left, could move to the other side to avoid his blown-out face.