1880-1910 typical indoor photo techniques / studio equipment

my question is about the history of photography. i would like to

shoot studio portraits with "look&feel" of the ones made within

stated period of time. <br>

i'm planing to use large format camera for these pics.

please share your knowleges on:

<ul>

<li>lighting techniques and equipment </li>

<li>typical film sensitivities</li>

<li>typical exposure times</li>

</ul>

any related information is also highly apericated.

here is an exsample of what i would like to get as final result.<div></div>

close up<div></div>

Exactly my point many moons ago, that the advancement in film and processing had a much greater effect on photography than lens and camera technology. The photo you posted has sufficient sharpness and exposure. I know the format is "big", then, it looks like a contact print.

That would be an Albumen print, from probably a glass plate negative. But it is NOT what it looked like when made, it is clearly at least a little faded and yellowed.

 

Lighting looks quite low contrast. North skylight?

 

Contact print, of course.

 

You can get Albumen paper from Chicago Albumen Works. It's a printing out paper, with very long exposure times, in very bright light. Then you fix and gold tone it. It has very deep blacks when new. I have some vintage unmounted Albumen prints that are unfaded, and have incredible dynamics.

 

Albumen paper needs a higher contrast negative than we tend to use today. So do many of the other "alternative processes." Just a matter of developing longer, and finding the right EI. But any fine grain film should be fine, you don't need films with speeds around ISO 10. (Nor can you get them.) I suppose Ekfe ISO 25 would be a fine choice of film, since it tends towards contrasty. But you could probably develop a workflow around T-MAX 100 just as well.

 

If your film speed doesn't let you use an aperture that looks like this sort of picture, you'll need some ND filters.

 

You basically need to start with the paper, get the hang of it, and how to make negatives that give the best results with it.

 

Obviously, skill in conventional large format portrait photography is essential.

The first problem you will encounter is finding subjects that look like that. Lighting - flash powder, availble light with reflectors, some tungsten where electricity was available. Film speed - very slow. Exposure time - in the seconds, mostly. With flash, remove lens cap, set off the powder, replace lens cap, run outside choking from the smoke. Fun!

That's probably natural light in a studio with large windows and possibly skylights. A fancy studio would have louvers and curtains to control the light.

 

Centennial POP isn't albumen paper as far as I know, although it comes from the Chicago Albumen Works. You can coat your own albumen paper though. Go to www.bostick-sullivan.com for info on making albumen paper. Info on POP can be found here--

 

http://www.albumenworks.com/printing-out-paper.html

 

Much of that look comes from hand retouching with pencil on the negative, which was standard for portraits.

David G is on track. Overhead north light, large neg camera, long camera-subject distance are starters. Look for pix of Matthew Brady's studio. Old photo catalogs also point the way. HAVE FUN.

Looking more closely at the enlarged shot, you can be fairly sure there was pencil retouching on lines in the face and perhaps some softening of the shadow under the chin. I was surprised to see how sharp the eyes are, given the likelihood of a 10-30 sec. exposure at f:5.6 or f:8 (a fast portrait lens would be around f:4 max, and with a composition like that, bellows factor would be around 1/2 stop for that format, plus maybe one stop for reciprocity, assuming a film speed of around EI 6-12), but that's probably retouching too. It was fairly common to retouch the irises to make them lighter, and ink or heavier pencil could be used on the whites to make them really white and clean up any ghosting from eye movement. This work was all done on the negative.

A further thought--the lens is probably a standard Rapid Rectilinear type, which would have been fairly common at the time. You don't see the glow in the highlights you would expect from a soft-focus lens, which would have been more popular a little later than this photo, and would have been considered a much fancier, more expensive lens.

I stand corrected, Chicago Albumen Works makes printing out paper. Which can produce results pretty similar to albumen paper, but isn't albumen paper.

 

Careful toning of the print is also part of the look.

In some books I've come across references to studios using limelights about this period. They were used in huge troughs, to give an effect not unlike the modern softboxes. While 'God's light' would have been preferred both aethetically as well as on grounds of cost, the more fashionable studios were quick to advertise their modern lighting systems. Given the sheer muscle of limelight, they may well have shortened exposures as well, though I pity the poor sitters with that amount of energy drenching them, especially in the clothes of the day!

first of all thank you all for responses!<br>

it's clear now it was albumen print. so it will be possible to get this kind of paper for printing.<br>

very interesting was information about negative retouching.<br>

less clear up to now what kind of lighting was used. natural or artifical? <br>

looking into the eyes of this genleman you could see fat white almost horisontal lines. these are reflections of a light source, i suppose. <br>

was it a large window, line of lamps with reflestors or moving light source. we may only guess...

"was it a large window, line of lamps with reflestors or moving light source. we may only guess..."

 

It was a row of sky-light windows, almost certainly. My Grandparents ran a portrait studio around this time, and my Grandmother was an expert negative re-toucher ... I still had her set of pencils until they vanished in a house move. I remember that the negatives had a rough surface or "tooth" to accept the pencil lead - was it the base or the emulsion side? Anyway, they used magnesium powder flash in long trays, as well as sky-lights.

"I remember that the negatives had a rough surface or "tooth" to accept the pencil lead - was it the base or the emulsion side? "

 

Pencil retouching was still reasonably common in the nineteen sixties in London. I worked at a commercial studio where we had two ladies of indeterminate age and eternal cheerfullness, one of whom had a true Cockney accent (my dad was a Cockney so I know) while the other was very 'refained'. It didn't stop them being the best of friends. They sat in front of a lightbox that must have been ten feet long and 'stroked' negatives as small as two and a quarter square. It was truly amazing what they could do with a soft pencil and their ever present magnifying glasses.

 

I got into a certain amount of trouble by grabbing a negative and printing it before it was worked over, then pinning the print up next to the retouched version, with what I thought was a suitably amusing caption about plastic surgery. Of course, it turned out that the picture I'd used was of one of the proprietor's relatives!

I agree that this was natural light in a studio.

 

Some films had and continue to have retouching surfaces on one or both sides, and in general, it's usually possible to retouch on the emulsion side with plates or film, but the old retouchers also used a retouching compound that would add some texture to the negative. There were different formulas for this compound, some just thickened turpentine, and there were commercial preparations available. To add a lot of density, it could be used on both sides of the negative, and some retouching compounds were amenable to layering, but in some cases a second layer would remove the first layer and create a mess.

 

Other retouching techniques used included etching with various blades like X-acto knives and abrasion with abrading tools and abrasive reducing compound. I've made this compound with brown tripoli and mineral oil. It can be used to tone down hotspots, which appear as dense areas on the negative. Etching with a knife is tricky and takes lots of practice. I certainly haven't mastered it yet myself.

 

With film negs you can use a tool like a needle perpendicular to the base surface to prick the base in a random pattern to eliminate pinholes or spots from dust on the film during the exposure.

 

All etching and abrasion should be done before any pencil or dye retouching, because if you go far with the knife, you can often fix it with the pencil.

Hmm... Nnnee.., Please visit my folder <a href=http://www.photo.net/

photodb/folder?folder_id=352312>Brass Lens Paradise</a>. All by 50 to

100 years old cameras and lenses and by vintage way. There is no need

of technic nor lighting. Natural is the best. By using present high

speed films you can get any result far better than your ancestors'.

Antique feeling such as aged color is an another story. You can get

it easily by photoshop.