George Hurrell lighting

[jnantz]

its much easier to figure out the lights if they are barndoor/hot lights
too bad mark wangerin doesn't still have his site / board.
from time to time someone who used to retouch some of hurrell's work ( i think? )
mark was able to really recreate the look of the hollywood portrait.

from what i remember, nothing was really shot wide open but it was still open enough
to let the lens do its thing...
and some of what hurrell was doing wasn't with new/fresh film+paper so there was a little
of that expired-mystique as well.

maybe the wayback machine has something ...

[Alan Gales]

Well i got other book on him, by Whitney's Stine (which talks about Verito as lens for earlier photos) . And i have very hard time to believe he would be able to convince Marlene to take off makeup, unless he used chloroform.. But you are right about retouchers - from all the notes its fairly obvious that there was plenty. Which isn't all that terrible. Good retouchers back then and now - are vital part.

You are right about Marlene Dietrich and her makeup. She didn't like Hurrell and said that he was crazy. Joan Crawford absolutely loved him and the way he made her look.

[Alan Gales]

I am curious about the retouching they did. What exactly did they do to those negatives to make them look so good? As far as the lights, I'm good to go. All of my lights are hot lights, Mole Richardson fresnel spots and redhead hot lights. The other thing I have to consider is the film. I think I'm going with Delta 100 (4X5)

Yeah, the retouching that they did is definitely a lost art. Sometimes though they retouched a bit too much.

[Alan Gales]

You are right about Marlene Dietrich and her makeup. She didn't like Hurrell and said that he was crazy. Joan Crawford absolutely loved him and the way he made her look.

I'm sorry. I told you wrong. It's been a long time since I read the book. I looked it up and it was Garbo who didn't like Hurrell and thought he was crazy.

[SergeiR]

You are right about Marlene Dietrich and her makeup. She didn't like Hurrell and said that he was crazy. Joan Crawford absolutely loved him and the way he made her look.

Again.. according to same book - they shot many times and he loved working with her ( i can't question this.. i know i would ). Including in her later years when she was hitting night clubs.

Anyway. Back to the look and question.

Cheapest possible way to experiment with Hurrel's style stuff - getting some snoots / wee grids for flashes, remembering that he was often shooting bare arc (still means you got to stick small diffuser or funky reflector in your flash gun though, b/c reflector size was about 6-8" at least) . And reading books on posing and portraits. Lots and lots of good books (or taking workshops ). There is not much technical super stuff going there with lights, but there is really good inner sense of how light SHOULD work with particular POSE. At least in ones that got published.

Oh and of course - diffused lens with uncorrected aberrations (remember - we shooting b&w) or just black veil (instead of diffusion lens) on lens will help.

Rest is all about practice - trial/error/rinse/repeat. (oh and btw - Elinchrom got really interesting zoom heads that suppose to be able to come very close to fresnel lensed hot lights in terms of light style).

In that sense - having digital camera might be something to consider, even small one - just use to get whole thing lined up, and then shoot film to achieve perfection

[John Conway]

Among the many actresses that he photographed, the Jean Harlow pictures are my favorite. I read that baby oil was used to get that shine. He must have used it a lot on Harlow. She seemed to glow more than the others. Then there is that overall physical mood of the subjects that seems to suggest the whole thing was very laid back. I mean Harlow looked like she was laying on a tanning bed with a buzz.

[John Conway]

Again.. according to same book - they shot many times and he loved working with her ( i can't question this.. i know i would ). Including in her later years when she was hitting night clubs.

Anyway. Back to the look and question.

Cheapest possible way to experiment with Hurrel's style stuff - getting some snoots / wee grids for flashes, remembering that he was often shooting bare arc (still means you got to stick small diffuser or funky reflector in your flash gun though, b/c reflector size was about 6-8" at least) . And reading books on posing and portraits. Lots and lots of good books (or taking workshops ). There is not much technical super stuff going there with lights, but there is really good inner sense of how light SHOULD work with particular POSE. At least in ones that got published.

Oh and of course - diffused lens with uncorrected aberrations (remember - we shooting b&w) or just black veil (instead of diffusion lens) on lens will help.

Rest is all about practice - trial/error/rinse/repeat. (oh and btw - Elinchrom got really interesting zoom heads that suppose to be able to come very close to fresnel lensed hot lights in terms of light style).

In that sense - having digital camera might be something to consider, even small one - just use to get whole thing lined up, and then shoot film to achieve perfection

I was thinking about using the digital camera to get a good idea of how everything will look under the lights before making exposures on film.

[Alan Gales]

Again.. according to same book - they shot many times and he loved working with her ( i can't question this.. i know i would ). Including in her later years when she was hitting night clubs.

I'm sorry. I told you wrong. It's been a while since I read the book. I just looked it up and it was Greta Garbo who didn't like George Hurrell and said that he was crazy.

[BOB MURPHY]

PM sent

[Peter De Smidt]

One of the surprises in my book about Hurrell was that he requested that his models wore no make up. Of course back then the studios had full time retouching artists to "doctor" all photographs. They were very heavy handed in their retouching!

They didn't wear foundation, but they did have lip and eye makeup. Some of the negatives had six hours of pencil retouching done to them. In one of the books there are pictures showing before and after retouching versions of a Joan Crawford image.

The baby oil thing was something that he did fairly early on.