How to get a pictorial look for a brief assignment from modern lenses?

[John Powers]

I am one week into a five week alt process course working in traditional blue Cyanotype and Van Dyke brown processes. I am shooting 8x10 and the HP5 that I have. For one of the assignments the professor would like us to set up and shoot in the pictorial style with a normal lens. I have a 12” Dagor and a 300mm APO Symmar. What can I do to tone down these sharp lenses to achieve the fussy blurred look of the pictorial style? I can’t buy a lens and learn how to use it in the time and budget allowed.

Can I shoot through some material to filter out the sharpness and add graininess? I develop with Rollo Pyro in a Jobo CPP-2. Is there anything in the development process to change? All suggestions appreciated.

Thanks for your help.

John

[Robert Hughes]

Do what Hollywood used to do: smear a donut-shaped ring of Vaseline on a sheet of glass & hold in front of the lens.

[goamules]

Or try taking the front element off the Dagor.

[Mark Woods]

A really nice effect is to get a stocking and put it on the front of the lens with a rubber band. Be sure to stretch it and take note of the weave because your highlights will bloom in those directions. If you don't want an overall soft effect, you can burn a hole in the net with a match or cigarette. Different stockings will give you different effects. BTW, Haskell Wexler shot Bound for Glory with a $.99 stocking from Walmart. Good luck.

[benrains]

The idea of using a little vaseline on a sheet of glass, or on a screw on lens filter, placed at the front of the lens would work. Another option to consider would be to stretch some see through fabric over the front of the lens. An old pair of standard flesh colored nylon stockings would work, and maybe experiment with white and black colored ones to see if the flare/diffusion effect is different with the different colors (I'd expect the white to give a more blown-out effect). Other types of fabrics to try would be gauze, cheesecloth, or even the netting that things like bags of onions or potatoes come in at grocery stores.

If you want to increase the grain,of the film (which may be challenging with 8x10 sized HP5+) try pushing the film a stop or two to 800 or 1600 and then compensate with your developing. And I'd suggest using Rodinal as your developer.

[John Powers]

These are great ideas that are certainly affordable and can be done right away. Thank you. Any additional thoughts?

John

[BarryS]

--Fog the lens with your breath before exposure

--Split the total exposure into two exposures--one with the lens focused normally, and one with the lens defocused.

--kick the tripod leg during exposure :)

[Robert Hughes]

Another option to consider would be to stretch some see through fabric over the front of the lens.
Hollywood cinematographers use black nets (stockings) on the back of the lens, closest to the film gate. I used to remember why - maybe to cut down on spurious reflections.

[Jim Galli]

Roll the front out to 12 or 14 inches and put a pin hole on.

[Louis Pacilla]

Hi John

You may want to check out Google books. I have around 1000 free full view magazines & books that range from 1860's-1940's. Tones of great "how to" from the pictorial masters as well as great images .
One thing I have read time & time again is Most of the Pictorial photographers (before the great abundance of & easy access to Diffused focus lenses ) seemed to use Good Old Rapid Rectilinears way after the excellent Protar, Tessar ,Dagor & alike where around .

[Mark Woods]

If you're shooting a landscape, one of the things the pictorialists did was to focus beyond infinity. Be careful about putting a net BTL on long lenses since you may see the weave. The DOF is the opposite in front of the lens and BTL. On long lenses the diffusion will go in front. On wide lenses (in 35mm format) the diffusion will go BTL. I use to shoot a lot of commercials with a Fogal stocking BTL for ages until I was doing a long lens shot at an F/11 and could make out the texture of the weave. Fortunately it wasn't a problem. BTW, Vaseline is not optically clear, but KY Jelly is (non-flavored). ;-)

[Frank Petronio]

Just look for backlighting, shoot wide-open (to get a round aperture) and underexpose a stop. Fogging the lens, putting sex lube on, and missed focus will work too, but it is nice to have something sharp to give the viewer something to lock on.

[Mark Woods]

A light net isn't all that diffuse. There are gradations here and the question is about pictorialism and an image that isn't totally sharp. It's about the relationship between the photograph and the viewer, of which there are many. :-)

[John Powers]

Thank you all for some great ideas. Time to try them.

Thanks,

John

[Mark Sawyer]

In the 1920's through the '40's, it was also quite popular to get a "pictorialist effect" by enlarging through a diffusion filter or a layer of cheesecloth or stocking below the enlarger lens.

[Kirk Fry]

Use cheap magnifying glass or plastic reading glasses. Take the elements out of a shutter and use the lenses in front of that. 3 diopter = 333 mm. you can double up two lenses for shorter focus. KFry

[Mark Sawyer]

Use cheap magnifying glass or plastic reading glasses. Take the elements out of a shutter and use the lenses in front of that. 3 diopter = 333 mm. you can double up two lenses for shorter focus. KFry

That was my first thought too. Unfortunately, the assignment was to "shoot in the pictorial style with a normal lens." Otherwise:

http://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?t=35097

[Andrey Vorobyov]

I have a 12” Dagor and a 300mm APO Symmar.

John, if your 300mm Symmar is "Symmar-S" you can try to use rear element only.
Schneider says that the newer Symmar _S_ (unlike older Symmars without "S") are NOT intended to be used without front element. I nevertheless tried it -- against their recommendations -- and found that the rear element alone acts like a soft lens. As usual, the more you stop down the less soft it is.

The rear element of my 300/5.6 Symmar-S alone has focal length ca 335mm, not sure about speed (I cannot reliably measure the entrance pupil diameter); my lens is mounted in Copal #3 which has max. opening 65mm so very approximately the speed is 300/65 = 4.5.

[jnantz]

shoot wide open flat light
and front focus ( focus in front of the subject )

[Scott Davis]

you could also do the Dallmeyer/Verito soft-focus trick - unscrew a couple of twists the rear element on your Dagor.

I've got an image that I printed in Palladium that was shot with a 14" Commercial Ektar that is extremely pictorialist in style (I don't have a scan of it on my work computer or I'd post it now - I'll try to post it later tonight when I'm home). I don't remember the exposure details, but I THINK it was shot near wide open. It's a landscape shot of a weeping willow framing a lily pond, so it has this very flat, 2-d, japanese watercolor landscape feel to it. Pictorialism is as much about compositional style as it is abusive deployment of soft-focus effect.

[sanking]

Technique was an important part of the syntax of Pictorialism but the narrative component conveyed by allegory and symbolism was ultimately of even greater importance to a deeper understanding. Meaning is not about just what is depicted or its construct but about its allegorical or spiritual meaning. So be sure to include something in the photograph that will give it an allegorical or symbolic meaning.

Things that convey symbolic meaning are tombs, ruins, women dressed in white, skulls, cobwebs, the macabre, etc. This can be a neat trip if you really get into it.

Sandy King

[Brian K]

Just look for backlighting, shoot wide-open (to get a round aperture) and underexpose a stop. Fogging the lens, putting sex lube on, and missed focus will work too, but it is nice to have something sharp to give the viewer something to lock on.

Frank so that's why you have sex lube in your kit?

[John Powers]

Thank you again. Great Ideas.

At lunch today I was looking out the window at the weeping willow drooping over our pond, realizing a new purpose for that view.

My wife and I took a History of Art survey course two years ago. We wrote two long papers on the iconography in a Corbusier church and a Velasquez painting. Looking at the sample pictorial pictures we immediately dug out the iconography notes and dictionaries.

These ideas are most helpful and enjoyable. Thank you.

John

[Jim Michael]

When I used to make special effects filters I would design with vaseline and implement with clear nail polish. Sit down with a filter and can of acetone, try some designs out using the vaseline. One pattern I liked used a series of dots all over the filter. Radial lines (spokes, crosshatches) do weird things with specular highlights. Replicate the keepers using the nail polish.

Re the stockings, some nets are white and some are black and the effects are pretty different, i.e. variation on the amount of light encroaching into shadows etc.

[Mark Woods]

Good points Jim. One can also spray paint in the air and let it fall on the glass. White, black, or clear will all give different results.

[Joe Smigiel]

John,

Why not try a double-exposure with one of them out-of-focus? Ala Ralph Eugene Meatyard's "Zen Twigs" series...

[Peter Gomena]

Place a piece of Seal MT5 dry mount tissue in the film holder in front of the film. Instant grainy, diffused pictorialism. You may have trouble finding this stuff, not sure it's still made.

Peter Gomena

[lenser]

Calumet cardboard filter mounts with white and black net fabric (many colors are available for other effects on color film). Do several with one, two and three layers for increasing diffusion and then a second series with half dozen holes burned through (burns seal and don't run) by a lit cigarette (for size) to create sharp within softened layers of the image.

White can catch light and further diffuse the scene while black is less so for lessor flair effect. Also white does not show pattern on light sand, snow, white buildings, etc and black is similar on darker subjects, especially at low depth of field.

Using a wire mesh (screen wire weave) in a "silvery" or chromed material can create miniature flairs all over the view. Speculars in the scene tend to flair strongly while deeper tones are just softened. Best used behind the lens since light hitting this directly without a shade tends to smear rather than just flair.

Black plastic screen material can be used like the fabric mesh but in single layers since it is a tighter weave and tends to subtract much more light in layers.

All of these effect exposure, so my rule of thumb is one layer=1/2 stop up to three layers=1.5 stops on the fabric. The ones with holes, add back 1/2 stop.

[Mark Sawyer]

Technique was an important part of the syntax of Pictorialism but the narrative component conveyed by allegory and symbolism was ultimately of even greater importance to a deeper understanding. Meaning is not about just what is depicted or its construct but about its allegorical or spiritual meaning. So be sure to include something in the photograph that will give it an allegorical or symbolic meaning...

Sandy is quite right on this very important and overlooked point. While the OP was asking how to "get a pictorial look from modern lenses", we've talked only about getting a soft-focus effect. Pictorialism, especially in its Linked Ring and Photo-Seccesion days, was a movement with underlying philosophies and intents. Thinking a soft-focus effect as pictorialism is like thinking the throwing in of a few "thee's and thou's" as Shakespearean writing.