Agreed, Frank. When I had the studio and was actively doing weddings, I could count on a total of at least 45 hours per wedding. That was counting all conferences, the equipment check out, film handling, the actual shoot, sending off the film for processing, organizing the previews into a cohesive story, the preview and ordering conference, then the actual sales meeting(s), taping the ordered negs to the cropping cards for the lab, then organizing all of the orders when the prints came back plus the final delivery presentation. If the whole tribe couldn't make it to one sales meeting, that would extend the hours to about 48. To outsiders, it looked like four hours on a Saturday afternoon, but what did they know. I have to wonder how many marriages have floundered on the altar of being a wedding photographer who is never home with the family on weekends. I loved the actual shooting and telling the story, but the rest was absolute misery of taking away from a real life.
As to the color bias, I worked very closely with my lab back in the 70's and 80's to establish a skin tone warmth target that was pretty accurately based on the equivalent of an 81A filter on perfectly exposed transparency film. It gave that lovely deep suntanned look without odd tonalities thrown in. They were able to create a target color profile for my work that was easy to match so long as I nailed the exposure within half a stop.
I actually got the idea from going to one of the old Nikon School seminars back in the early 70's in which one of the instructors had shot centerfolds for Penthouse. He told the story of how they gave every model that same glorious tan....Nikon lenses, Kodachrome film, and a Nikon 81A filter. Stunning results and it certainly paid of in working out this formula with my lab.
"One of the greatest necessities in America is to discover creative solitude." Carl Sandburg
One of my favorite aspects of LF portraiture is having the camera set up and focused, film holder in, dark slide pulled and being able to talk to the subjects with cable release in hand while waiting for the right moment to trip the shutter. It helps enormously when the subjects are friends.
Toyo 45A, 210mm Sironar-N, 4x5 T-Max 100
Jonathan
8x10 arista (cropped from longest side a bit), Gundlach Radar 8x10.
Thats it : hitching a ride by Sergei Rodionov, on Flickr
It decided to rain so had to adjust original concept a bit by adding umbrellas (one for model and one for camera.. i still got super wet ), instead of canning shoot entirely.
Greetings,
Have been a lurker for years on this forum.
To introduce myself, I am a 30 yr photo enthusiast (currently at 44 yrs old and hopefully still counting). I shoot 35 mm (rangefinders), Canon digital, and 4x5 and 5x7 on occasion. I pay the bills as a chemical engineer. Most of my film usage is B&W with the ocassional home-processed C-41.
I have tried shooting my dad a bunch of times, but managed to get this one around last year holidays. I printed it, and put in my office. It has grown on me as I think it captures the expression of my dad as I usually think of him. He had to have something in his hands, and that's his iPad - which is something I never thought I would see him do. I hope folks don't mind my posting it in Sept, but it has only been recently that I built up enough nerve to share it with the forum.
I used a Deardorff 4x5 Special with 210mm Rodenstock Geronar f/6.8 and Tri-x 320 in HC110.
Best regards,
Scott
And one more to close off the September (shot this Thursday)
4x5 Delta (100), Chamonix 45n2, Symmar 210mm
T* by Sergei Rodionov, on Flickr
ex-Pic-A-Day (slowed after 2 years)
on flickr
Analogue Photo and Film FAQ (for APUG)
Open Source F/Stop Timer
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