Anyone doing large format portraiture?

Any books on the subject that are available?

Thanks, Bryan

-- Bryan (photoville@yahoo.com), March 31, 2001

Answers

Bryan: You might want to check out "Hollywood Portraits, Classic Shots and How to Take Them" by Roger Hicks and Christopher Nisperos. This book covers the Golden Years of the movie industry and the photos produced by the leading photographers. It goes into some detail analyzing the photos to figure out the lighting setups that were used.

-- Ken Burns (kenburns@twave.net), March 31, 2001.

Also: "People Photography, Creative Large Format", published by Sinar. ISBN 3-7231-0049-X

-- Chris Ellinger (chris@ellingerphoto.com), April 02, 2001.

Lately I've been going to every used bookstore that I can find. I've uncovered a host of old material that is quite good and fairly usable. Perhaps a good public library will have some of the old books too.

See if you can find "Professional Portrait Lighting" by Charles Abel. There are offerings from one hundred photogs all active in 1945. As an interesting side issue, there is quite a discussion about whether or not to use Orthochromatic film or Pan film for portaits. (sorta puts the Digital/film discussions in some kind of perspective) Also, interestingly, many of the photogs use florescent light. (I'm assuming that the higher values of green and blue in that kind of light help the orthochromatic film). Anyway, lots to learn there.

Also, any books by William Mortensen are very interesting. While his rather strict and inflexible attitudes come out... and he does have a very dictatoral way of talking, there is a totally solid philosophy of portraiture there. Most interesting.

good luck,

chuck k

-- chuck k (kleesattel@msn.com), April 03, 2001.

Any format: Do a used book search (or check your library) for Paul Petzold's book Light on People. Excellent treatment of faces and heads.

-- Jeff Polaski (polaski@acm.org), April 04, 2001.

Karsh has nice examples but no setup diagrams

-- Scott Walton (f64sw@hotmail.com), April 05, 2001.

Phillip Stewart Charis is still doing large format portraiture I believe. he uses an 8 x 10 camera with a 5 x 7 back and a 300 mm Kodak Ektar lens. His large portraits are exquisite. I have a copy of his book and it too is exquisite.

Kevin

-- kevin kolosky (kjkolosky@kjkolosky.com), April 14, 2001.