Film Stills Recreation

Diary Entry:

For this project, I had to re-shoot twice. The problems that I had with the first shoot was that the prints all turned out grey and were frustrating to work with. I was only able to get one final print out of my first shooting. So I, along with 3 other people re-shot. From there I had to work with filters. I started out with the most extreme: 5 filter and 2.8 aperture. From there I changed the aperture, filter, and time around until I could get a decent contrast in my pictures.
This was not one of my favorite projects. I’m not too fond of taking pictures with the set up lighting. I like dealing with natural light rather than for it to be set up. But, this was a good project in knowing where the light is coming from in the picture, how many light sources you need to use, and at what intensity.
My final prints were somewhat to dark, but it was the best I could get with the negatives. I used filters a lot in 2 of my prints. I am not fond of using them either, but it gave me a better understanding in how they work.



Theory Notes:

His Girl Friday – Howard Hawks (1940)

This film has Carry Grant and is from 1940. This picture is similar to the one I have with three people sitting down, two of whom are looking intently and smiling at the person on the far right. The same thing is happening in this film still. Some limitations with this movie is that it is in black and white. Not very many people were working with colored film, but they were past the stage of the “Talkies”, where the audio of the movie wasn’t there. But, the audio during this time was still going through development in technology and the clarity in the audio itself.

Marnie – Alfred Hitchcock (1964)

This film has the actress Tippi Hedren in it. This picture is similar to mine in that they both have one person in it. Also the light that is on them is similar. The light is lighting up the front of the face and the side of the face. The 1960’s focused a lot on cultural and social mayhem, going against the status quo of society. Also realism came into play, and directors worked with changing the movement of the camera.

To Save a Life - Brian Baugh (2010)

Though this film is not out yet, it is still a new film. This film in relation to the 40’s and 60’s is much more advanced than then. In filming, they can use green screens to dub in an intricate background that may be hard to film in. This picture is similar to mine with two people and the position of the two people. The first one has her head facing the person who’s face you can see.

Printing Compositions:

1. Light on his head and hair to show the light coming down.
2. Lighting from the far right side allows for light to appear like it is coming from the side, casting light more on the right side of the body.
3. Light also here (on his shirt). The light is coming down from the top right corner of the image.

1. Overall positioning of the three models is similar to the film still; all close together with a little bit of space in between each other.
2. The girls are positioned so that Katlynne, the older woman in the film still, is slightly in fromt of Jenny, the younger girl in the film still.
3. Soft lighting over all three faces. The light is somewhat harder on the man’s face, in this case Javier.

1. Light is coming from the back, behind the models. There is also lighting n the girl’s head; in my recreation, the girl is Barbara.
2. There is lighting here as well (on the man’s ear), you see a minimal amount of skin on the man, in my re-take, Fabrizio.
3. Light on the woman’s forehead and side of her face, due to the light coming from behind.

Black and White Prints:

My first contact sheet was only useful for my first print. The rest of the pictures were too grey to use. I also had to have different times and apertures for the negatives. The negatives with one person was 16 aperture and 11 seconds. The other two set of negatives had a time of 3 seconds with 4.5 filter and 5.6 aperture.

My second contact sheet was more in successful with my final prints. The final time was 5 seconds at 11 aperture. Though I didn’t need a filter for the contact sheet, I ended up needing one for each of my final prints from it.

This print was quite easy in developing and didn’t give me much trouble. The cropping may have been the only thing that was time consuming to fit the paper. The final time is 27 seconds with 22 aperture.

My second print came from my second contact sheet. The final time for this one was 2.5 seconds, with a 4.5 filter at 5.6 aperture. This print only took me one class to do.

My final print was my most time-consuming print. It was very gray, and the filter helped the contrast, but it was still difficult to get it at the right darkness. I had to work on this one, then go on to another one and come back to this one later. The second time, I worked with using extremes in filter number and aperture, and went from there. The final time for this one was 4 seconds with 3.5 filter ant 5.6 aperture.

Image Bank:

Strangers on a Train – Alfred Hitchcock

This movie was made in 1951, and Art Streiber re-created a film still of it for Vanity Fair. In this picture are Emile Hirsch and James McAvoy which portray the actors Farley Granger and Robert Walker. When comparing the actual still with the re-created one, the shadows behind both men’s heads are there. The lighting is very accurate, but the hand gesture of the second man isn’t there in the re-created still. Also not all of the props are there in the scene.

The Birds – Alfred Hitchcock

The new film shot for this movie was taken by Norman Jean Roy. Jodi Foster is taking the place of actor Tippi Hedron from 1963. In the second film still, there seems to be more light on the actresses face when compared to the first still. The lighting that is cast on the blue poles and the shadow that is on it looks quite accurate to the original one.

Psycho – Alfred Hitchcock

Mark Seliger took the film still for this Hitchcock movie. The actress that took Janet Leigh’s place in this picture is Marion Cotillard. Once again the lighting is right, where it is at the top left side of the woman’s head. Also, the water in the recreated still is going the same way as the original one. Also the facial expression helps it to look similar to the original film still.

Image Bank 2:

Mirjana Vrbaski -

Mirjana Vrbaski is a photographer that works at the Royal Academy of Art in Den Haag, The Netherlands. Her vision in a picture is that when someone looks at, it will take them back to a certain time in their lives. She doesn’t want her pictures to look too modern, but rather makes you ponder and think what time period it is actually from. Also, the picture should have a different meaning for every person. She mainly takes portraits. Before that in college, she started off taking pictures of abandoned buildings, but then turned to portraits. She has her boyfriend work with her, for she says he knows what she wants in a picture almost better than she does.
Her style is quite precise in that her pictures cannot look too modern or point to a specific date. Also for her backgrounds in portraits, she uses a bland tan looking color that doesn’t stand out too much. When taking pictures, she will first play around with the digital camera and get a look at the lighting on the model. Once she is satisfied with all of that, she takes her film camera and takes her final print. She uses 2 different film cameras. One of them can hold 16 negatives, and the other holds two, but is much larger. She uses the latter for large prints.
I was able to meet and work as Ms. Vrbaski’s model. I was very tense at first, but after her talking and explaining and just being calm, I was able to relax and feel comfortable with her. Her style is different in that again, it is very precise. One of her most famous portraits is named Girl and was made this year.

Mirjana Vrbaski is a great photographer and her preciseness and wanting her prints to be just so shows that she knows what she wants in a picture.

Lighting (Part 3)

Diary Entry:
For this last project in the 3 part lighting projects, the focus was on hair. I realized that it can be hard to show off hair without making it too 'out-there' and extremely head-turning. But what I learned is key is the position of the camera in relation to the model and how you portray the person in the picture. Also the posture and style of the model help make inferences to what it is that is being focused on.
My negatives all turned out fine, except for a few, which I took in poor lighting. So I re-shot and was glad I did because I got some very nice shots of my two friends posing together.
I was sick during one of the classes, but I was able to use my free block to work on developing the negatives and finishing my prints.
These 3 prints felt much easier compared to the 9 from the last project.

Theory Notes:
Flash photography - It consists of using the flash button on your camera, and when taking a picture, will emit a flash of light. There are several uses for the flash. The first, direct flash, is used when it lighting for the picture is low due to lighting or if it is dark outside. This gives the picture more light and shows contrast with the subject and the background. It also gives thick shadows.


















The next use is for fill flash. You can use your flash on a sunny day when there are areas in the picture that is not directly in the sunlight. This fills in the light missing in that area and illuminates it so you can clearly see everything in your picture.















Bounce flash means that you can use flash to avoid getting the direct flash. You may want this so you do not get the contrast and dark shadows that the direct flash gets. To do this, you angle the flash at an angle and not directly on your subject, so they get a softer light fall on them. Since there is a loss of light because it is not directed, that means that the aperture should be opened up more, allowing for more light; going up 2 stops should do it.

Light Metering - This is used to show how much light is given off when taking a picture. It has 2 different methods on how to use it. The first is reflective metering, where you measure the light that is coming off of the subject when a light is pointed towards them. The second is incident metering where you measure how much light the light is giving off. Position the meter where the subject would be in relation to the light and measure from there the amount of light.

Printing Compositions:

For my first contact sheet, I got a time of 36 seconds at 2.8 aperture. I used a different enlarger than the one I normally use.On the contact sheet, the pictures looked a little grey, but for the final print I used from here, it turned out fine.

This is my second contact sheet. Here I was able to get my angled print and my print with two people in it. The final time and aperture for this sheet is 6 seconds and 8 ap, respectively.

For my first print of a full-frontal shot, I used Jenny from my first contact sheet. I took this picture in the natural light outside. This gave the picture a nice backgroud, but you are still able to see that the focus is on her black, straight hair. For my test strip, I tried 4 to 12 seconds at 8 aperture, and for the final print, I ended up with 8 aperture and 10 seconds.

My next print is the angled hair shot, where I moved the camera around the model to get a different view of the hair. In this picture I too the picture from under her, focusing in on her extremely blonde hair. I got this picture from the second contact sheet, and the pictures came out too grey when I had the aperture at 8, so instead of adding a filter and more time, I dropped the aperture to 5.6 and decreases the time. The test strip was 5.6 aperture and ranged from 2-12 seconds. I tested 4 seconds, and was still a bit too light because of her hair, so the final time is at 6 seconds, 5.6 aperture.

My last shot was of 2 people and I thought that the contrast between dark and light and straght and wavy hair would be very distinctful and would stand out. In my contact sheet there are other pictures of the same girls where I focused in on one girl more than the other, but this one has both of them slightly in focus. Again, the aperture went down from the contact sheet, so the test strip and final time and aperture is at 2 seconds, 5.6 aperture.

Image Bank:

This image is a very clear picture of hair, because that is the only thing that you see on this person. The picture is called Nahui Olin and was taken in 1924 by Edward Weston of Illinois. During his photographing career, he ranged from pictorialism, nude pictures, landscapes, and still life. He even received a Guggenheim Fellowship award for experimental work. He was quite diverse in his photographic ability.

This is a picture of Doris Day, a famous movie star during the 50's and 60's. This shot is a great angled shot, as you are able to see the top of her head, which not everyone can always see on other people. The photographer, Leo Fuchs was known during his time to take many pictures of Hollywood's Elite, on and off the set of movies. Also with photography, he was also a motion picture producer.

This is a picture of 2 models right next to each other, both with different hair color. The contrast looks nice and brings direct focus to it. This is very similar to what I did for my shot with two people in it. Georg Wendt is the photographer of this commercial shot for haircolor. He started out in reportage photography and later emerged into fashion photography. He also went to school at The Academy of Visual Arts Leipzig.

Lighting (Part 2)

Diary Entry:

For this project, I only had a week due to the extension on the previous project, to complete 9 photos for the part 2 of the lighting series. I had to shoot twice for pictures. The first time I took some nice shots, but I don't think I placed the film in right, so when developing the negatives, nothing came out. The second time, I was able to get 34 pictures for my project. So I worked with these for my project. I was also able to get my contact sheet and 9 prints done all in 1 day.And all of my prints turned out fine. The only problem was that two of the pictures I used were not completely developed at the end, so I had to enlarge the photos so the undeveloped part would not be in it. The three catergories in this project consisted of Accessories, Shoes, and Clothes.

Theory Notes:

Low Lighting: With low lighting,the aperture will have to be at a higher number, for example 22, and the shutter speed at about 100. Since there is not much light, the lens needs to stay open longer to get in as much light as it can. A tripod is helpful for this because the lens will be open longer. Also, if there is not much light, the B (Bulb) button on your camera will help give you some more light on your subject.

Sun Lighting: When you take pictures in facing toward the sun, but the natural light, you have to make sure that the lens itself is not facing the sun, but rather the model is key should still be able to see. Otherwise, you get rays of light going into the lens, which bleaches the picture. Also, make sure that the sun is not right about the subject's head, because then there is a shadow under their eyes. It is best if the light is off to one side of the subject.

Printing Compostitions:

Contact Sheet -

For my contact sheet, I started with 5.6 aperture, and all of my pictures have this as their aperture. The time for it is 5 seconds. From this sheet, I was able to get all of my 9 prints for the project. Also, in all of these pictures, I used natural lighting, sunlight, to take these pictures.

Accessories -

My first print for accessories was of Heather. Here she is looking up, but the main focus is on her necklace, and not so much on her. I started with 20 seconds when developing the test strip and I went up by 2's. The picture was dark where the white was supposed to be, so I used a 2 and 1/2 filter to fix it. The final time with

the filter is 30 seconds, at 5.6 aperture.

The next print focuses on a big ring that Katlynne is wearing. The only other thing that you see in the picture is her hands in front of a black jacket, so your

view goes directly to the ring. The time started at 12 seconds and went up by one in my test strip. The second test strip is at 17 seconds, which ends up being the

same time for the final print.

My last accessory print is with Heather again, with her necklace, yet this time she is admiring and looking directly at the necklace. The time started at 10 seconds all the way to 18 seconds. Between 12 and 14 seconds looked good, so I played with the timing for a bit, and found that 12 seconds was the right amount of time for the final. The aperture being at 5.6 still.

Shoes -

My first shoe print is a favorite of mine, because I was able to incorporate some

depth of field in it. I had to lay on the ground to take this one, but it ended up being a good picture that shows you a different view of the shoe. The first test strip was at 4 seconds and went up by 1 second. I then made another strip at 9 and 10 seconds. After looking at that one, I was able to decide that the final time and aperture would be 10 and 5.6, respectively.

This print at first was supposed to be another one from my contact sheet, but there was a scratch on my negative of the picture, that I was not able to use it. So, I used one that was very similar to it. Since I knew the time from the first one was around 5 seconds, all I had to do for this one was test the times from 4 to 5 seconds. The final time is at 5 seconds.

The last shoe picture has a different look than the others because the pose and position of the shoes are abnormal. It almost looks like a ballet pose. The time

for this is at 6 seconds. I found this out by testing it out on the test strip, where I started with 2 seconds and went up from there.

Clothing -

For this photo, I was wanting to use it for an accessory shot, but after examining the picture on the negative, realised the accessory was too sm

all to use. Also the focus was not on the accessory, but on the subject as a whole, so I then chose it for clothing. The aperture is 5.6 and I started the test strip at 20 seconds. The final time is at 27 seconds.

My next picture is a full frontal shot of Heather. Here the sun was out more than in my other pictures. So there is a shadow of her in this picture. The test strip time started at 20 and went up in increments of 2. The final print has a time of 23 seconds.

The very last print gave me a bit of trouble. Previously mentioned in the Diary Entry, I had trouble with some of my negatives in that they were not developed all the way. This is a picture where this occured, so I had to enlarge the picture until the undeveloped part of the negative was not noticeable anymore. So the starting time of the picture was 16, and the final time for the print is 19 seconds.

Image Bank:

For my first accessories picture, I chose a picture by Shana Rae, who is from

Guatemala. She shoots in natural lighting. She also uses Photoshop to make adjustments in her pictures. This one is of a little girl wearing a bunch of colorful necklaces and a headband.

My second image for accessories is by Settimio Benedusi. He is from Italy and started fashion photography in 1990. Some of his clients are Vogue and Marie-Claire.

Salvador Pozo specializes in jewelry photography. He works out of the Netherlands. This picture is of a girl, you get her face and part of her body in the shot, but what sticks out the most is the necklace and matching bracelet she is wearing.

Denise George is has her photography company, Fierce Shoes Photography, in Phoenix, Arizona. She started out as a graphic designer and later photography caught her eye. She takes many wedding pictures as well as teen and children portraits. The picture here is a good example of shoes because it has a nice contrast between the black and white of the shoes and the light also gives the shoe a shiny look.

Terry Ryan is a fashion photographer who works in London and Paris. He has a studio in London and deals with a few clients. The picture I used from him is a shoe picture of a man who is on the move. Here the focus is on the shoe, while the nice car in the background is out of focus.

Wayne Tippetts love for street photography started around the 80's in London. Today his pictures contain a cool edge to them, that you wouldn't see in most fashion photographs. Street fashion gives an 'in' outfit a cool twist to it. This picture here is of a funky pair of lace up high heels. Notice how he uses depth of field by placing the focus of the picture in the front, where the shoes are.

Much of Robb Kendrick’s photos are in National Geographic. The one I chose for clothing is of a girl in Guagueyvo, Mexico, wearing a traditional outfit. This profile picture of her outfit shows the color and details in her clothes.

Pamela Reed and Matthew Rader work together to create this fascinating picture of model Anna Mikhaylik, who is wearing boots with multi-patterned tights. The movement of the model gives a new dimension to her already intriguing outfit. Reed and Rader together create many unusual pictures for their website http://www.pamelareed.com/.

Finding his love for photography at the age of 11, Ken Weingart has grown in his passion. He likes to take pictures of spontaneous moments for his fashion photos. For the one I chose, it is a set of 2 picture. They both show movement, and work with lighting to show off the black and white spotted dress.