[pure-silver] Re: portraits for a book

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "shannon stoney" <sstoney@xxxxxxx>
To: <pure-silver@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, October 25, 2004 4:23 PM
Subject: [pure-silver] portraits for a book


>I am getting ready to make some portraits for a book.  I 
>have only
> made a few portraits before, so I am going to practise 
> first, but
> does anybody know of a good book about portrait lighting, 
> etc?
>
> Also:  I was planning to use Tri X and make silver prints, 
> but then I
> remembered that some magazine publishers prefer 
> transparencies.  Is
> this also true for book publishers?  Would there be any 
> good reason
> to shoot b and w transparency film instead of tri x?
>
> Or, is there a better portraiture film?
>
> --shannon
>
   I would check with the publisher about what form of B&W 
stuff he/she wants.
   There are a lot of books on portrait lighting including 
one in the Kodak Workshop series. One of my favorites is 
_Painting With Light_ by John Alton. This was long out of 
print but has been reprinted, check Amazon for it. Alton was 
an academy award winning director of photography. This book 
is the only one I know of by a "golden age" D.P. which 
actually shows how to do portrait lighting and light sets. 
Since it is no longer hard to find or expensive I recommend 
it along with whatever else you get.
   The way to learn lighting is to practice. Find some 
patient person who will alow you to light  them and move 
things around so you know what different kinds of lights do. 
Actually, Alton shows a lighting wand, no more than a 
"nite-lite" on a stick that you can move around someone's 
head to see what different ligthing angles do. I made one 
for about $4:00 from stuff from the hardware store.
   Film makes a difference. Tri-X sheet film has a very long 
toe, actually a continuously upward swept characteristic 
that tends to make very bright highlights and bring up skin 
texture. OTOH, 400T-Max has a short toe and long straight 
line characteristic and will make skin brighter. This is my 
favorite for portraits of women.
   It helps to know something about makeup and hairdressing 
but I am no expert. Makeup may not photograph the way it 
looks, about the only way is to make tests.
   Rule of thumb is to back the camera off about 6 to 8 feet 
for head and shoulder photos or for head shots. To fill the 
frame this usually requires a lens with about twice the 
"normal" focal length. The rule for lenses is to use focal 
length of from 2 to 3 times the long dimention of the film.



---
Richard Knoppow
Los Angeles, CA, USA
dickburk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 

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