Black on white or white on black: how?

[miro]

What is technique of creating black on white or white on black photos ? Some are obvious: black backdrop and a light source, but the ones shoot in nature?

Like this one:

http://www.photoblink.com/images/pb22922_a1432.jpg



Cheers,
-Miro

[jrobbins]

It takes a ton of practice to get a shot like the one you show...

I've not been as effective with this type of shot as Gloria Hopkins, but here's what I've found:

The black background effect is achieved when the subject exposure is considerably "brighter" than the background -- the effective contrast between subject and background is more than the camera/film/ccd can handle. When exposed for the subject, the background goes black and loses all detail. It is easier to accomplish when the effective distance to the background is MUCH greater than to the subject. That is, a lot of light on the subject, dark background, large aperture and fast shutter is the likeliest recipe for a shot like the one you posted.

Harder to get naturally white than black. White seamless photography is clearly the easiest way, but a subject in front of a very bright window can also achieve a similar effect. The difficulty with strong backlight is that you need to light the subject in a way that brings out the features -- exposure this way enables the highlight background to go white. In my mind, this would be extremely difficult to do well with on-camera flash.