At my best, when I am shooting B&W, my images are all about light and the way it interacts with the world. I will often shoot the source light itself, the sun or a bank of windows, all blown out and creating an area of dead space.
With film also, metering when shooting the source light is tricky because the range of exposure stops within the image is large. I tend to point the Lecia at the area that will have the proper exposure for the figure in the light, such as the floor, and then reframe. Another great metering tip with the Leica in tricky situations is to take a reading off of your hand when in the same light as the subject, the hand being the greatest gray card.
In this instance, shooting these two standing in front of an installation at MOCA, I metered the room and opened up three stops. I neither wanted the bodies completely silhouetted in black nor the light source completely blown out. I got exactly what I wanted which is a half and half mixture of luck and experience.
Shot with a Leica M6 TTL, 35mm summicron, and Kodak Tri-X 400.
Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles © Doug Kim
