[pure-silver] Re: Skin tones
- From: "Richard Knoppow" <dickburk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <pure-silver@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 27 Aug 2006 15:17:37 -0700
----- Original Message -----
From: "Peter Badcock" <peter.badcock@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <pure-silver@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: "Richard Knoppow" <dickburk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, August 26, 2006 4:03 PM
Subject: [pure-silver] Re: Skin tones
On 27/08/06, Richard Knoppow <dickburk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
For a "creamy" look I've found T-Max 400 in D-76 1:1
works well but the overall look depends a lot on
lighting.
I've taken good portraits, with skin rendition I liked,
on
several films. However, I will stress that lighting has a
much greater effect than the film.
---
Richard Knoppow
Hi Richard,
can you elaborate on the types of lighting you would use
for the kind of
skin rendition you prefer?
Unfortunately I don't own any studio lights.
regards
Peter
I've gotten the best results from mostly diffuse lighting
with enough specular light to bring out skin sheen. The best
portraits were by natural light, either from large windows
or late afternoon light on partly cloudy days. The low angle
of the light helps and also the color of the light late in
the day. While a thick overcase results in highly diffused
light its mostly coming from straight up, so is not very
good for portraits because it tends to shadow the eyes. Its
important to light the eyes.
I've also gotten good results by using large reflectors
which can give a similar quality of light.
I used to work with studio type lights a lot when I had
the room. Its easy to makeshift diffused lights but less so
for spotlights where one wants a sharp edged light for some
reason. I have photographed a couple of women whose skin was
so perfect it could stand direct daylight or flash on the
camera and be blemish free and smooth. Quite rare. While I
use diffused light I don't like the effect of too much
diffusion because it destroys modeling. There has to be a
little hard light in there.
The advantage of working with studio lights is control of
lighting ratio and subject contrast. One can also do this
outdoors using reflectors. One key to getting good skin
rendition with any film is to get the skin somewhere in the
straight line portion of the curve and control the shadow
areas that need some detail. Probably a ratio of 8 to 1 is
the most one can have. Specular highlights will never have
detail because they are beyond the range that can be
printed. Small specular highlights, like catch lights in the
eyes, need not have detail but broad highlights, like the
forhead should probably not have more than about 4 to 1
brightness from the average skin area.
I can go on with this but a few hours spent with small
lights will tell you more than any book.
BTW a trick I learned from an old book is to make a test
light by fixing a nite-lite on the end of a rod perhaps 4 or
5 feet long. Get someone to sit for you and explore around
in dim light using the test light. This will show you what
light from various angles brings out.
The book is back in print and I recommend it. _Painting
With Light_ John Alton. Its available in paperback for less
than $20. Amazon has it but I don't remember the current
publisher.
---
Richard Knoppow
Los Angeles, CA, USA
dickburk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
=============================================================================================================
To unsubscribe from this list, go to www.freelists.org and logon to your
account (the same e-mail address and password you set-up when you subscribed,)
and unsubscribe from there.
Other related posts:
