> Thanks for posting, Frits. You know, I'm going to go back > and "listen" to all the commentary by Platon. Of the few I > did listen to just now, I felt I really learned a lot, and I > thought it might be fun to draw on this project to create a > kind of homework assignment for myself---that is, set up a > simple light scheme, get some friends and family to queue up, > then call them one by one for portraits and shoot under a > very short time frame. Could be interesting. Maybe over > Christmas break. Thanks again, Frits. Cheers, Christine >
Richard Avedon had a similar look to many of his portraits, and his technique is interesting and may be worth emulating, although it is certainly not a short time frame. Perhaps along with Irving Penn's use of natural light. Penn would set up a backdrop outdoors, with only natural lighting and perhaps a reflector, and place his subjects in front of that. Avedon put his camera on a tripod, of course, and used a very long cable release so that he wasn't stuck behind the camera. His assistant would change the plates when required, but we have plenty of storage and automatically-reset shutters. Avedon would have his subjects in front of the camera for about an hour, and neither he nor the subject were allowed to speak. Avedon would simply observe and take pictures of the subject's reaction to the camera and his behaviour during that long time when, presumably, he revealed whatever it was that Avedon was interested in. Bob -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
