George Hurrell, Documentary

[Bernice Loui]

Discussion about Fashion Fotos and Edward Jean Steichen got me thinking about a documentary done on George Hurrell some years ago. The doc appeared on Youtube, then disappeared. Now it has re-appeared. This is a worth while watch for any interested this style of Portrait image making using a LF camera, lighting, composition. Keep in mind George Hurrell started out as a painter, then moved on to photography as a means for survival. Keep in mind, the 8x10 negatives used to create these Hollywood images from that era were "retouched" to extreme degrees in some cases (scrape, fill, pencil and a LOT more) to achieve the PR look needed and expected. This is one of the many reasons why the 8x10 film negative was such an excellent tool for this kind of image making.

The doc was sponsored by Canon.. which is a bit "humorous" near the end as there is Canon EOS promo near the end.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4G7-J0lOncQ



Bernice

[diversey]

A wonderful documentary!

[Peter De Smidt]

Yeah, that was fun. Thanks for the link!

[Daniel Unkefer]

Quite enjoyable. Thank you.

[William Whitaker]

Alas, not a word about lenses. Guess it's just geeks like us, er, uh... me, that care about such!

[Bernice Loui]

Much of GH images were about lighting-shadows-composition and greater less about camera-lens as camera-lens alone can NEVER produce the results GH got in his images.

Yes, that is a Kodak Commercial Ektar used by GH in this doc, but GH used a variety of lenses over the course of his work. He also used Mole-Richardson lighting which was very common in Hollywood. Notice the clothesline clip together with cardboard lens shade and curious dark cloth and... GH also used a Canon EOS towards the end of this doc as promo...

As previously mentioned, what was not discussed-mentioned are the highly skilled negative re-workers that so completely altered these negatives to meet what was needed in the images to be produced. This IS the similar-identical to "Photoshop" of today.


Bernice

Alas, not a word about lenses. Guess it's just geeks like us, er, uh... me, that care about such!

[William Whitaker]

Much of GH images were about lighting-shadows-composition and greater less about camera-lens as camera-lens alone can NEVER produce the results GH got in his images.

That wasn't my point. But never mind.

[Tin Can]

Bernice, as recently as 1995 my second and last wife Marnie was retouching 8x10 chromes of Playboy models. She would not show me how. They film was sent by courier. I never saw what she did.

She also painted set backdrops.

Much of GH images were about lighting-shadows-composition and greater less about camera-lens as camera-lens alone can NEVER produce the results GH got in his images.

Yes, that is a Kodak Commercial Ektar used by GH in this doc, but GH used a variety of lenses over the course of his work. He also used Mole-Richardson lighting which was very common in Hollywood. Notice the clothesline clip together with cardboard lens shade and curious dark cloth and... GH also used a Canon EOS towards the end of this doc as promo...

As previously mentioned, what was not discussed-mentioned are the highly skilled negative re-workers that so completely altered these negatives to meet what was needed in the images to be produced. This IS the similar-identical to "Photoshop" of today.


Bernice

[Peter De Smidt]

Looked like a Commercial Ektar.

[Jim Noel]

Looked like a Commercial Ektar.

If you look carefully you will see that it is by Goertz, probably a Dagor, or its predecessor "Double Anastigmat"