[pure-silver] Re: Skin tones
- From: "Richard Knoppow" <dickburk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <pure-silver@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 27 Aug 2006 15:00:02 -0700
----- Original Message -----
From: "BOB KISS" <bobkiss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <pure-silver@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Sunday, August 27, 2006 6:49 AM
Subject: [pure-silver] Re: Skin tones
DEAR RICHARD,
I was not judging from early sound movie: I know from two
sources that
Hollywood still photographers used ortho:
1) Murray's book where he discusses his techniques.
2) View Camera magazine ran an article some years ago
about getting "that
Hollywood look" and stated that most of those
photographers used ortho film
ESPECIALLY for women and that it gave them rich skin
tones. They cited
quite a few photographers.
3) We all know that the Hollywood stars were heavily made
up (I was a
beauty and fashion photog and directed some commercials in
NYC and Europe
for two decades and I KNOW make-up) but there is nothing
like green
sensitivity to smooth out skin.
These seem like reliable sources of information which
correlate with my
experience ever since doing a test of skin tone
rendition as a function of filter color with Tri-X in the
early 70s at RIT.
CHEERS!
BOB
Please read more carefully, I was saying that the films
and techniques for still photography were different from
those generally used for motion picture photography up to
the sound era.
I don't know which Murray you are refering to.
There were several well known portrait photographers in
Hollywood who either worked for the studios or were in
private practice. Probably the best known were George Hurrel
and Clarence Sinclair Bull, both of whom worked for
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Hurrel is famous for the very extensive
retouching he did to his negatives. Bull probably did, or
had done, some retouching but not to the same extent. There
were probably about a dozen other photographers, mostly not
as well known, who also produced publicity photos of stars.
These were portrait photographers: there was another group
of photographers who made stills on the set. Some of these
were for publicity but many were record photos in case
reshooting was necessary.
I don't think any one book can tell you exactly what the
practice of any of the portrait photographers was. My
sources are many and some are from personal conversations
held pretty long ago. One good source would be photo
archives, like the one at the Getty, where some original
negatives still survive. These would make it clear what film
was used.
Note that most of the 8x10's fan photos from the studios
were from duplicate negatives, mostly on some sort of
commercial film, so those would not be useful.
Lighting in the movie still portrait studios was mostly
the same lighting equipment used on sets, that is, small to
medium sized spot lights and large flood lights, but
probably not arc lights. Lighting equipment changed rather
rapidly from the introduction of sound until about the late
1930's.
Orthochromatic film tends to exagerate skin blemishes.
While makeup can cover these its still easier to get smooth
looking skin using pan film. There is also the question of
reproduction of clothing.
In any case, I know that Karsh used panchromatic film
because he specifies the film in some publications. At least
in the 1950's he was using Kodak Pancromatic Portrait film.
Probably Tri-X sheet film is the closest current film to
this.
Ortho film was widely used for press photography with
flash on the camera because it tended to compensate for
washed out skin caused by the small angle of the flash from
the lens (tends to cover up textures) and the excessive red
output of the flashbulbs.
I suggest experimenting. Ortho film is still available.
It has a look that can not be easily duplicated by filters.
BTW, skin has relatively low green and blue reflectance
which is why green and blue backgrounds are used for both
motion picture and television special effects keying.
---
Richard Knoppow
Los Angeles, CA, USA
dickburk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
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