ye olde style portraits (1 Viewer)

[La La]

yo yo yo.
I'm watching bury my heart at wounded knee (it's great) and is interspersed with gorgeous dagurreotype photographs (that were taken when filming)

actually, there's lots of portraits of native chiefs out there in the same style - it's lovely. anyone know how to achieve that kind of look using film and, I guess, a modern enough camera without all that antique equipment? is it down to lighting, the type of film, length of exposure? would love to know.

 

[jonah]

I had a roll turn out like that by complete accident a few years back, it was due to using a film that was far past its expiry date and thus utterly fucked. But the pictures turned out oddly great, though naturally nowhere NEAR in the league of those. They're captivating. I love portraits more than anything else in the world and they are stupendous.

 

[ann post]

you can get a brownie box at an antiques place for a few euro, or you can self build.

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/30688/how_to_make_a_homemade_pinhole_camera.html

i've seen other links before that use a regular digital camera with long exposure instead of film. g'luck.

 

[ann post]

i had a brownie box a year or so back, i bought it as a gift but never used it, myself and moose gave it a servicing and a good look over. it was one of the first popular portables ever so i'd imagine ye olde's are very often brownie's.

the arperture only had three settings as far as i remeber, and the exposure time was (in this case a bit sticky) but based on a little mechanical timer. my folks were saying that for those pics very often people had a neck brace type thing to stop them moving, as without a flash the exposure time was too long for a human to maintain a pose.

 

[La La]

cool, handy tips all.
though I don't think I've any reeeeeeeally old film lying around. I've been meaning to make a pinhole for a while now, guess it can't hurt to try. I wonder will it give the same effect...

 

[magicbastarder]

it's a lot to do with the age of the prints, too, and the paper they were printed on.

 

[hugh]

La La,

I think what you are really after here is sepia toning. That's the brownish colour that gives those photographs their real quality. It doesn't have as much to with either the film or the type of camera .... it's all about what is done to the print after it has been printed. You can buy sepia toner and steep the print in a sepia solution after the normal processing. I think certain types of papers respond better to it and it's a bit of a black art getting it right. Or you can fake it with digital I suppose ....

A lot of portraits from this period would have been taken on large format cameras as well which certainly adds something to them as well.

 

[Space]

Photoshop.

 

[La La]

La La,

I think what you are really after here is sepia toning. That's the brownish colour that gives those photographs their real quality. It doesn't have as much to with either the film or the type of camera .... it's all about what is done to the print after it has been printed. You can buy sepia toner and steep the print in a sepia solution after the normal processing. I think certain types of papers respond better to it and it's a bit of a black art getting it right. Or you can fake it with digital I suppose ....

A lot of portraits from this period would have been taken on large format cameras as well which certainly adds something to them as well.

sepia solution eh? worth a try...i wonder if any developers here would offer that service...
worth looking into though, thanks

Photoshop.

ha. I was waiting for some smart arse to mention that.

 

[washingcattle]

Fuck photoshop go alternative

http://www.bostick-sullivan.com/cart/home.php?cat=48

If you want a crash course in alternative processes I'll give you my college notes and a few pointers along the way. Highly recomend making a pin hole, but try to use either some photographic paper or some cyanotype/ Van Dyke threated paper to make negatives. Kick it mad old school. Now all you need is the chin strap to hold the head in the right position during the 5-20 minute exposure and you're on your way.

 

[La La]

Fuck photoshop go alternative

http://www.bostick-sullivan.com/cart/home.php?cat=48

If you want a crash course in alternative processes I'll give you my college notes and a few pointers along the way. Highly recomend making a pin hole, but try to use either some photographic paper or some cyanotype/ Van Dyke threated paper to make negatives. Kick it mad old school. Now all you need is the chin strap to hold the head in the right position during the 5-20 minute exposure and you're on your way.

cool! and nice 'native' pun

I think I'll start by making a pinhole and go from there. But good to know there's special papers you can get for this kind of thing

 

[magicbastarder]

easiest way to make a pinhole camera is by drilling a body cap for a film camera.
there are calculators available online which should help choose film and exposure.

 

[Jill Hives]

cool! and nice 'native' pun

I think I'll start by making a pinhole and go from there. But good to know there's special papers you can get for this kind of thing

You can buy any porous paper and treat it yourself but if it's the browns/sepia you want the vandyke. Cyanotypes are blue as you can probably imagine.

 

[ann post]

in the long view, just use a 1mp setting and all your stuff will look circa 2000.

 

[Ferox13]

in the long view, just use a 1mp setting and all your stuff will look circa 2000.

LOL

 

[Scientician 0.8]

Daguerrotypes were a completely different process though weren't they? I doubt a box brownie would do photos anything like them. I would say setting a digital on a long exposure, getting the person to sit very still, for minutes, then sepiafying it in photoshop or whatnot might give you a vague approximation. Speaking out of my hat probably. I would love to actually do daguerrotypes but it seems like a big hassle to set up. There's something weird about them, you look odd to yourself in them, but normal to other people? something like that. I like photos.

 

[ann post]

Daguerrotypes were a completely different process though weren't they?

fair enough, as far as i was concerned, if you wanted sepia tone you just leave them on the windowsill for twenty years, and occasionally smoke 6000 cigarette's while bathing in coffee in front of a coal fire.

here's the two first things i thought worthwhile for brownie's on google:

http://www.hoax-slayer.com/pearl-harbor-brownie-photos.shtml

http://www.brownie-camera.com/bud.shtml