It’s #filmfriday and in today’s post that word “film” means the movies. As I mentioned last week, like many photographers I get inspiration for my images from many sources. One of my photographer/friends, for example, finds it in old master’s paintings; I get the inspiration for, at least, some of my photographs from the movies.
Today’s Post by Joe Farace
Recently I re-watched my favorite film of all time, Frank Capra’s 1937 classic “Lost Horizon.” In looking at the “making-of” video on the Blu-ray disc’s extra features. I was struck not just by its cinematography but also by the quality of still photography featured, The obviously large format images that were displayed on the disc clearly demonstrated why the 1930’s and 40’s was the golden age of Hollywood still photography. All of this was going through my head when I was making some glamour images of Stevie who I thought had the classic looks of a 1940’s film star.
Recreating the Film Past
Most DSLRs and mirrorless cameras let you shoot directly in black and white but I’ve found that these monochrome portraits can be difficult to retouch because of the smaller number of tones the image files contain. Instead, I prefer shooting portraits that I plan to ultimately appear in black and white by using RAW+JPEG mode with the camera set in monochrome mode. That way I have a black and white JPEG preview image I can show the subject and a color RAW file I’ll use to first retouch and then convert to monochrome.
After testing 25 different methods and products for converting color images to monochrome (for an article I wrote for the former print edition of Shutterbug ) I found that Silver Efex was the most versatile for the kind of portrait images I like to make. This plug-in suits my workflow and my style, yours may be different, so the tools you might want to use will also be different, Silver Efex, like some other monochrome software, also lets me apply different colored filters and grain. Typically I don’t like and previously stayed away from adding film grain to portraits but now occasionally I’ll do it to add some softness to the image. That’s a tip I learned from the amazingly talented portrait photographer, Cliff Lawson.
Old Hollywood glamour images had several things in common, including close cropped head shots, but there are other characteristics that are easy for digital photographers to emulate. Some of those aspects include:
- Shallow depth-of-field. Shooting with the lens wide open helps minimize depth-of-field. If you’re a new photographer, you might want to click that link.
- Vignetting: When converting an image to black and white I sometimes use Silver Efex’s vignetting capabilities but instead I’ll often apply the Burning and Dodging layers that are found in Pixel Genius’ PhotoKit2, especially the Burn Four Corners command I used in today’s featured portrait.
- Soft focus: There are many ways to do this but my favorite (and what was used with the above portrait) is the Glamour Glow filter that’s part of Color Efex. Tip: You can’t overdo this feature because if you apply the soft focus to a separate layer, you can lower that layer’s opacity using the Layers palette to produce the exact effect you’re trying to produce.
How I made this portrait: This image was from the second of three shoots that I had with Stevie. She ultimately gave up modeling because of too many bad experiences with photographers but she worked with me until Shutterbug stopped paying model fees for women I photographed for lighting equipment reviews. To photograph Stevie in my 11×15-foor home studio I used two LED lights that were part of Rotolight’s RL48 Interview Kit, with one light placed on either side of her. The camera used was a Canon EOS 50D with EF 85mm f/1.8 lens and an exposure of 1/50 sec at f/1.8 (for minimum depth-of-field) and ISO 640. The background was a 6×7-foot Westcott Masterpiece April Showers Collapsible Illuminator muslin background.
I’ve always been a big fan of monochrome photography and even wrote a book about it—Creative Digital Monochrome Effects. New copies of the book are available from Amazon for $11.46 with used ones selling for around nine bucks,for one of my favorite books.