does skin colour matter?

[assadmd]

i have recently started doing more ppl fotography and really shot portraits of a black person the other day. i realised i was struggling with his skin tone colour. ive done many of ppl with white and fair complexion and never had such a problem. is there something im missing when it comes to taking colour portraits of dark skinned ppl or was it just a bad day. the pics at the end of it look great, but i felt i was struggling.. needed a lil play with foto editting to be happy where as im happy with the light skin pics right out of the camera
any suggestions/tips/ ideas welcome

[RexK_Cozumel]

you have to light people with dark skin differently than people with light skin. I suggest you pick up a copy of the book Skin by Lee Varis. It will teach you all you need to know about photographing people.

[ReflectingGrace]

I recently photographed my friend newborn who is black. I just found I needed to keep the exposure down a little bit. Once I found the place that looked good (two stops for me - the light in the room was bright), I kept it there. (picts in the link in my signature)

Each time will be different. if you shoot in RAW you will have a little more room to fix it later on

[sybren]

If you get a grey card and use that to set your exposure, you'll be set for any skin tone that walks in front of your lens. The lighting you need isn't different - you just need to get your camera around its "ooooh it's dark! Let's get a longer shutter speed to let in more light!" reflex.