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View Full Version : How to repeat JH Lartigue effect?



jeremydillon
13-May-2011, 01:53
http://www.masters-of-photography.com/images/full/lartigue/lartigue_car_trip.jpg
I'd like to repeat this shot if I can. (not exactly, but the feel of the elipitical tyres and slanting poles in the background)
I guess I'd need a large, slow moving focal plane shutter. Would a Speed Graphic be the best bet?
Does anyone know of any contemporary photographers achieving this?
cheers
Jeremy

Armin Seeholzer
13-May-2011, 02:58
You need a shutter which goes from the top down to the bottom!

Good luck Armin

Steve Smith
13-May-2011, 03:19
I was about to correct you and say that the shutter has to go from the bottom to the top.... then remembered that the image on the film will be upside down!


Steve.

jeremydillon
13-May-2011, 04:59
Did a bit of googling ... Brought me right back here!
http://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?t=31903

Jim Jones
13-May-2011, 05:00
A Speed Graphic or Graflex would be a logical choice. The much faster vertical moving shutter of a small camera like a Nikkormat would give a very few inches offset of a very fast moving car.

clay harmon
13-May-2011, 05:03
Shoot a cloth shuttered Leica M at a slow shutter speed in the vertical orientation with the shutter release on the lower right relative to the photographer.

Walter Calahan
13-May-2011, 05:07
Use the same style camera Lartigue used.

A Graflex SLR is recommended.

http://www.cosmonet.org/camera/grafle_e.htm

Brian C. Miller
13-May-2011, 10:58
Lartigue modified his shutter to slow it down. You might be able to do the same thing with a home-made guillotine shutter.

Jim Jones
13-May-2011, 11:18
Shoot a cloth shuttered Leica M at a slow shutter speed in the vertical orientation with the shutter release on the lower right relative to the photographer.

The shutter slit might take 20ms to travel across the film gate. If the camera is orientated vertically and the image cropped to horizontal format, the slit takes about 10ms to travel across the image. In the Lartigue photo posted above, the wheel occupies about 2/5 of the vertical diminsion of the image. This means the wheel would advance about 4ms during the exposure. At 60mph this is only about 4". Speed Graphics rule!

Brian Ellis
13-May-2011, 13:09
Photograph a wheel, distort it to your liking in Photoshop. Edit > Transform or Edit > Free Transform. No need to do it in camera.

bbjorkum
15-May-2011, 03:24
The core solution is to slow down your shutter, as you need a narrow aperture in your focal plane curtain to achieve the same results.

Jim Jones
15-May-2011, 06:21
Photograph a wheel, distort it to your liking in Photoshop. Edit > Transform or Edit > Free Transform. No need to do it in camera.

This would distort wheel and background alike. Distorting a moving vehicle and pasting it onto an undistorted background would achieve the traditional Lartigue look.

engl
15-May-2011, 08:27
This would distort wheel and background alike. Distorting a moving vehicle and pasting it onto an undistorted background would achieve the traditional Lartigue look.

Actually the background would have to be distorted as well. If you look in the photo, the background "leans" in the opposite direction of the vehicle. The camera was panned, but not at the full speed of the car.

You'd have to be very good with Photoshop, and spend a lot of time for the shots and PP for a good looking big print. I know I could never make it look right, considering that every row of the image basically has different perspective on a changing scene, yet all the rows tie together seamlessly. Light, motion blur of the wheel spokes, perspective... there'd be a lot of difficulties.

Do it with a camera :)

Brian Ellis
15-May-2011, 08:37
I didn't think he meant an exact duplicate of this photograph. If that's what he meant his first obstacle will be to find a race car that looks like that one not to mention a driver and bystanders dressed like those. : - ) I assumed he meant a "look" like that one, i.e. distorted background and wheel, rather than a duplicate of that particular photograph. Which I think would be pretty easy to do in Photoshop and would come about as close to replicating the effect as trying to do it in-camera.

Jim Galli
15-May-2011, 09:17
If you want to leave photoshop behind and do it as Lartigue did it, there is a bit of math I've done in anticipation of the same thing. Still not gotten it done though. Read through the posts here (http://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?t=58278&highlight=egg+shape).

goamules
15-May-2011, 09:49
I didn't think he meant an exact duplicate of this photograph. If that's what he meant his first obstacle will be to find a race car that looks like that one not to mention a driver and bystanders dressed like those. : - ) I assumed he meant a "look" like that one, i.e. distorted background and wheel, rather than a duplicate of that particular photograph. Which I think would be pretty easy to do in Photoshop and would come about as close to replicating the effect as trying to do it in-camera.

We can ask the original poster what he wants to do, but to me the joy would be doing it with hardware, not software. In other words recreate the effect, not digitally replicate the effect. Kids today replicate doing a lot of things on their game computers; play tennis, fight battles, become a swordsman, slalom ski. To me replicating archaic photographic hardware effects (like the common questions: "how do I get petzval swirl with my Digital SLR shots in photoshop?" or "how do I get that wetplate look without doing wetplate"") is missing the point.

Sirius Glass
15-May-2011, 13:40
I have been working of this with my Graflex Model D. The slowest speed is 1/10 second with the Tension on "1" and a 1 1/2" slit. I have not had success. I think that the 1 1/2" is too wide for this effect. I think if the tension was reduced and a 1/8" slit were used, it might work. It was too hard repairing the shutter for me to screw up the tension.

Steve

Mark Sawyer
15-May-2011, 14:16
As previously said, a large focal plane shutter, Graflex SLR, Speed Graphic, or similar. Lowest tension on the shutter for slowest movement of the slit. 5x7 format might be slightly preferable as the shutter would have to travel farther, so may take a little longer.

The important thing that nobody mentioned is to use a shorter lens and stand close to the action so you're panning really fast. That's a big, big factor.

jeremydillon
17-May-2011, 15:21
Thanks everyone. Looks like the speed graphic is the best available option. Now I just need to find one.

Vaughn
17-May-2011, 15:28
Don't forget that you also have to pan the camera during the exposure.

vaughn

Sirius Glass
17-May-2011, 16:23
Is 1/10 second slow enough?

Mark Sawyer
17-May-2011, 17:13
It's not the exposure time, it's the speed of the shutter slit moving across the image plane vs. the movement of objects in the frame caused by the rotation of the pan.

Jim Jones
17-May-2011, 17:39
Don't forget that you also have to pan the camera during the exposure.

vaughn

Lartigue panned the camera in the first posted photo, so the vehicle slants forward and the people lean to our left. If the camera had been stationary, the people would have remained vertical, and the vehicle would slanted even more.

Sirius Glass
17-May-2011, 18:27
I understand the panning and that it better to pan slightly slower than the car moves. I should have posted is "Can the effect be done at 1/10 second and with a 1 1/2" slit?"

Steve