April 2012 Portraits

[SergeiR]

My first LF portrait. Feel free to criticize and/or advise

Leaving LF aside. Note that apparent size of shoulder and arm is increased way too much. She is female, so you typical placement for portrait like that would be on about eye level or hair level, turning shoulders away from light. Anyway.. just me 2с

[Myxine]

Thanks Jay and Sergei!
I appreciate your sincerity and constructive comments. I agree with things from both of you. I've never been a good portrait photographer (well a good photographer for a start), i can't put my friends at ease: i guess i'm too stiff myself when shooting ah ah. But Olga is definitely not relaxed enough and that's on me. I'm not very imaginative when it comes to poses, i guess i should start picking up a list of portrait i like and look for the poses.

Concerning camera placement, i felt my mistake without understanding it clearly, so thank you. Now that i have a LF i feel that the back should be straight at all times. Sergei i'm correct understanding that i could have raised the camera to her hair level and bent it forward?

The only thing i'm not sure to get is your comment about the flatness, and the missing skin tones. Are the tone flat (the picture looks contrasty to me)? Or at the opposite, is the portrait too contrasty: not enough skin tones variation? That could come from Olga's placement, too close from the window, or me overexposing a bit...

Well, thank you guys. It gives me a lot to think to prepare for the next one, hoping that none of my future models are reading these pages, ah ah ah.

[shOo]

My first color 4x5 shoot. I like how it came out. Just wish shooting with color sheets would be cheaper.
Any c&c would be nice.



It's a picture for a little project I am working on with a few friends- something like a positive local brand labàdienà (hello in Lithuanian). So we thought the school's classroom would be the perfect place, to show our first t-shirt with our logo.

[Graham06]

I think you have a fine portrait and would have been pleased if I had taken that photo. I agreed with the thin and flat comment earlier. There is something wrong there but I cant identify what it is, and would love to hear expert printers opinion on what it is. With the correct insight, another printing of that negative will fix it.

[luphot]

A portrait of Luther Gerlach during European collodion week-end.
more portraits here:
http://medusaphotographie.blogspot.f...portraits.html

[David Brunell]

A portrait of Luther Gerlach during European collodion week-end.
more portraits here:
http://medusaphotographie.blogspot.f...portraits.html

Very, very good!

[Harley Goldman]

A portrait of Luther Gerlach during European collodion week-end.
more portraits here:
http://medusaphotographie.blogspot.f...portraits.html

Very well done! I like this a lot!

[Luke79]

[Jay DeFehr]

Arnaud,

I apologize if my terminology is not very clear, but it's difficult to put my impressions into precise terms -- my failing, not yours. What I mean by thin and flat, is that the skin tones look compressed, without good separation between tones, as if the film was over exposed and under developed. the midtones are not well separated. It's easy to get so preoccupied with adequate exposure, that we expose in a way that makes everything visible, but robs the image of chiaroscuro. I opened the image up in Microsoft Picture Manager (all I have here at work), and adjusted the midtones down considerably (-37), brightness up a little (+3) to compensate for the midtones adjustment, and contrast up a touch (+7), and it looks better on my monitor, but the skin tones still don't look quite as rich as they might.

Have a look at this:

Billy

8x10 Kodak 2D
Dallmeyer 4D - Wide Open
8x10 FP4+ in HC-110
Kennewick, WA

Jay's portrait is similar to yours in some ways, but look specifically at the skin tones -- how well separated they are. Though there are no deep shadows, there is a sense of depth, volume, and balance that gives the image a richness. I chose this particular image because I think it's successful in every way, and what I aspire to in LF portraiture, and I hope it inspires you, too. I don't know how many LF portraits Jay made before he made this one, but I'll bet it's not his first. I think you're off to a great start, but this stuff is not easy, so please don't be discouraged by my comments, which are only intended to help and encourage you to make more LF portraits! Best of luck, and keep them coming!

[Myxine]

Arnaud,

I apologize if my terminology is not very clear, but it's difficult to put my impressions into precise terms -- my failing, not yours. What I mean by thin and flat, is that the skin tones look compressed, without good separation between tones, as if the film was over exposed and under developed. the midtones are not well separated. It's easy to get so preoccupied with adequate exposure, that we expose in a way that makes everything visible, but robs the image of chiaroscuro. I opened the image up in Microsoft Picture Manager (all I have here at work), and adjusted the midtones down considerably (-37), brightness up a little (+3) to compensate for the midtones adjustment, and contrast up a touch (+7), and it looks better on my monitor, but the skin tones still don't look quite as rich as they might.


Jay's portrait is similar to yours in some ways, but look specifically at the skin tones -- how well separated they are. Though there are no deep shadows, there is a sense of depth, volume, and balance that gives the image a richness. I chose this particular image because I think it's successful in every way, and what I aspire to in LF portraiture, and I hope it inspires you, too. I don't know how many LF portraits Jay made before he made this one, but I'll bet it's not his first. I think you're off to a great start, but this stuff is not easy, so please don't be discouraged by my comments, which are only intended to help and encourage you to make more LF portraits! Best of luck, and keep them coming!

Hey no worries buddy. Obviously there are feelings that you have looking at a picture that are not easy to translate. In positive and negative (pun intented). Concerning my picture, i forgot to mention that it's a scan (on a not so good scanner) and that i did very little tweak. I'm not sure the negative is much better though. Maybe it's a bad combo: exposure so so, development that could have been more thought if i had more knowledge, i don't know the FP4+ enough to use it at best... Well, en the end i guess it screams "novice" everywhere ah ah! Thanks a lot for the comments, it'll help me improve. Definitely i hope i can take portraits like Jay's one you posted as an example.