I photographed Kara for a book cover. The publisher had other ideas and, since they "own" the cover, we went in that direction. But I like to look back at some of the shoots I did around creating "candidates" for the book covers to see what I was thinking in the moment.
The first thing I thought about when pulling this shot back up was that it is surprising that I was still using medium format film in 2009. I had almost forgotten that I kept a drawer full of black and white and color negative film right up until 2012. I'm not sure what emulsion this particular film was but I'm amused to find that my own color correction in the scan from the file is so far off. Kara's flesh tones have way to much red and magenta in them. I'm also chastened by the much lower dynamic range than I now easily get from native (non-scanned) digital files. I don't have a densitometer but I'd guess that this image has about 65% of the range I would currently expect to get from a digital file from one of my front line cameras.
Also of note is that my dining room (in the background) has changed so little in the course of a decade. I'm pleased to see that I got a fair balance of exterior light playing across the floor in the background, good exposure in the lawn outside and a nice progression toward Kara. She doesn't appear to be "comped in" to the shot but seems to be an integral part of the scene even though she is brighter than her immediate surroundings.
The one aspect that I am happiest with in this shot is the (to me) perfect expression on Kara's face. That easily transcends any of the gaffs I made when constructing the nuts and bolts of the portrait.
It was taken with simple tools. A Hasselblad 500CM and an 80mm lens. That, and a small flash with a medium sized umbrella. The take from the session was done with about 24 exposures; not the hundreds and hundreds of frames I might shoot with digital today....
Hope your Sunday is refreshing and pleasant. Today is my day to retouch a newer portrait...
5 comments:
Was this made on transparency film? I agree that positive film has a compressed DR.
Negative film seems to have more as one can expose for the shadows and, within limits, retain the highlights.
OTOH, I always felt that a good print was as much what was left out as what was left in.
I shoot Canon and have to say that despite the internet "wisdom" of "pathetic DR" I have found the files to be far more flexible than any film I ever shot. Moreover, no film ever gave me 12,800 ISO much less a deliverable image in crazy conditions.
NM, I see it says negative film.
Beautiful photograph. Nothing else needs to be said.
I'm with Antonio. The models connection to the viewer is awesome. Is it a wonderful photo? absolutely! I'm not worried about density or dynamic range.
What a beautiful portrait. You're right, her expression is perfect. The dynamic range looks good to me. I like deep shadows.
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