By Scott Shephard

This is not a "new" photo in that it was taken a few years ago in New Orleans when I was there attending a photography conference with some of my LATI students. I'm posting it because I am participating in a "black and white challenge" on facebook and I thought I'd kill two birds with one stone.

I like this photo because of the way the musicians are grouped. But I also liked the lighting, which is provided by very strong sunshine from the left. There is enough ambient light coming from the right to provide detail in the musicians' faces. This would have been an occasion to use fill flash but at this time in my photographic past, I was a flash agnostic, believing that natural light photography is best. I've learned since then that if you use flash properly, it won't overpower a subject. And if you use it very carefully, no one will know you used it. But they will see the results. (Frankly, I knew this a long time ago when I started to do senior photography. I used flash on this photo of Jennifer but you'd never know it."

If you are partial to black and white images, check out a few more here.

Canon 5DII 1/250s f/8.0 ISO1000 73mm