Ulophot
26-Jan-2019, 10:40
A few weekends ago, I made my first serious portrait in about 15 years. I made two exposures, the second with a minor pose request to the sitter. Neither is particularly good, but, in studying the contacts and a dozen or so prints made from the two, I relearned something I thought I would share, though it breaks no new ground.
The subject was seated at a table, drawing, framed horizontally about eight feet from my 210mm (4x5), with direct sun coming in from a window behind her, partially included to one side of the frame. The face is relatively small in the composition, an “environmental” portrait.
I had intended the film for special low-value-support development (SLIMT). My subject has dark skin, which I had placed on Zone III, the lowest reasonable placement in a 12-stop scene with this process. However, I inadvertently used a development with the opposite effect on low vales and the resulting density and separation in the low tones suffered. No great loss; the composition has a number of problems. (I'm not too bad a printer, but the time and effort to solve this problem adequately in a composition significantly flawed eventually led me to move on.)
My print study discovery was that the lowering of those values really changed what the photograph is about. Since the facial values are so low, the image becomes one of someone drawing, with the emphasis on the activity rather than the individual.
The subject was seated at a table, drawing, framed horizontally about eight feet from my 210mm (4x5), with direct sun coming in from a window behind her, partially included to one side of the frame. The face is relatively small in the composition, an “environmental” portrait.
I had intended the film for special low-value-support development (SLIMT). My subject has dark skin, which I had placed on Zone III, the lowest reasonable placement in a 12-stop scene with this process. However, I inadvertently used a development with the opposite effect on low vales and the resulting density and separation in the low tones suffered. No great loss; the composition has a number of problems. (I'm not too bad a printer, but the time and effort to solve this problem adequately in a composition significantly flawed eventually led me to move on.)
My print study discovery was that the lowering of those values really changed what the photograph is about. Since the facial values are so low, the image becomes one of someone drawing, with the emphasis on the activity rather than the individual.