[pure-silver] Re: Old portrait technique?

Very definately a portrait style called "Vignetting".

These were at one time so common they might have been called the "hallmark" of 
the professional studio photographer.


I still use the technique in nearly everything I print.

Perhaphs you know the technique as "dodging"

My flu does allow me to go for an award winning defination, but I would say in 
general "Vignetting" is dodging in an oval or circular shape; there are many 
variations so dont get too hung up on the shape


Ray






--- On Mon, 7/28/08, Michael Healy <emjayhealy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> From: Michael Healy <emjayhealy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: [pure-silver] Old portrait technique?
> To: pure-silver@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Date: Monday, July 28, 2008, 3:26 AM
> I've been scanning a boatload of ancient prints the past
> two years, most ranging from as 
> recently as 1950 as far back as about 1885. A few have
> shown a phenomenon that  
> puzzles me. I'm wondering whether anyone on the list is
> familiar with this.
> 
> Every one of the images in question is a formal studio
> portrait. These date (I'm 
> guessing) from the 1930s and the 1940s. (I'm stabbing
> at this, and/but the subjects 
> either are known relatives or were related to people I can
> ID). The odd thing is that all of 
> the prints have been blacked out (faded blackout) at about
> or below the knees. Initially I 
> supposed that I was looking at print deterioration; but
> after encountering a good half-
> dozen of these, I have begun to think that photographers
> were deliberately raising or 
> dropping one of the standards so the image would
> "softly" or "gradually" fade/cut off
> the 
> portrait for a sort of softened or faded look. 
> 
> It's hard to isolate the examples as to time and place.
> A bunch of them come from the 
> collection of my partner's father, who is
> Japanese-American but was raised in Japan 
> before and during the war. So his photos include portraits
> shot in occupation-era Japan. 
> But some also include portraits of his father and brother,
> shot in at least one studio in 
> California's Central Valley, where my partner's
> Japanese grandfather was operating a 
> farm before the arrests that followed Pearl Harbor. Also,
> I've come across a couple of 
> these in photographs I recently inherited from my own
> father - photos shot in studios in 
> Springfield, Illinois in the 1930s.
> 
> As I said, I thought at first that these were instances of
> deterioration; but the 
> deterioration I've encountered tends to involve fading.
> Even where it involves silvering, 
> there already must have been heavy black to begin with. So
> was this a portrait style, or 
> should I be viewing this as some kind of print
> deterioration? If so, what does it signify?
> 
> Sorry, I don't have a webpage where I can post
> examples. 
> 
> Mike Healy
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