trying to parody portrait photography - need help

[daniel_mcgee]

heya everyone,

i was planning on shooting a cheesey portrait, and i wanted to achieve

that "soft look" that you often see on photo displays in shopping

centres - usually made by those really bad "pixie photo" type

companies. i was told i could achieve this effect by smearing vaseline

on a filter, and then attaching that to my lens. is this true? would i

need to apply only a thin layer, or would it need to be layered on

like a lasagna? if so, how would this affect my light readings? i have

a canon F1 and the light meter is on the fritz, so i live by a

hand-held meter.

i appreciate any response.

[vihao]

Trying spritzing hairspray onto a UV filter, forming an even coat of little droplets.

[scott_eaton]

Have the subject wear a big collared polyester shirt aka the Brady bunch. For a girl, have her were one of those obnoxiously fuzzy sweaters, then brush it out till it looks like she has a dead pomeranian wrapped around her neck. Have your back light show a generous amount of split endz aided with the hair spray.

 

Have the subject tilted 45 degrees (remember the Posedian Adventure?) because many classic portraits look like they were shot in zero-G, and can be framed in either the horizontal or vertical orientation. They should be slightly cross eyed as well.

 

If they wear glasses, have them wear empty frames, then make it LOOK like they are wearing empty frames. A sloppy retouch job on teeth or zits, along with adding some 'cover girl from mongolia' eyelash enhancement will really help with this. Use a really stupid background with clashing colors.

[doug_harhai]

Daniel,

you shouldn't need much vaseline, but I like using black nylon material (like black cheesecloth, some people use black pantyhose) for this purpose--you can add as many layers on as you like, depending on how exaggerated you want the effect to be. Just rubber band the material onto the lens and you are set, and you won't have the clean up problems associated with the vaseline.

[craig_gillette]

A little (in)judicious use of too short a focal length will do wonders as well.

[chris_waller]

Look at Robert Mapplethorpe's portrait entitled, "Brian Ridley and Lyle Heeter". You can find it on 'www.mastersofphotography.com'

[blakley]

I couldn't find it there....

[craig_gillette]

Enter "Brian Ridley and Lyle Heeter" in Google and a variety of sites will come up. Some have better (from a viewing standpoint) images than others. Parody? I think it's more towards irony with an extension of a legitimate form with a very untraditional subject. (OTOH, it's a context thing, clipped from a Monty Python sketch, it might well be parody.)

[dogbert]

Those shopping center pro's are probably using a diffusion filter to get a cheezy soft focus. I have a cheap one but it is not very good. Not diffuse enough to look soft, so it just looks like it was shot with a bad lens. I have seen shots taken with a Hasseblad diffusion filter and they look great.

 

I also have a cheap soft-spot filter that produces quite cheezy shots. The center of the photo is sharp, surrounded by a circular halo of blur, which get more blurry the further you go from the center.

 

The Cokin range have a lot of cheap filters that produce very cheezy 70s type looks.

[robert_hurd]

To really get cheezy, then what about the pose?

 

...for example, don't forget to have the subject place their hands up close to their face for that "thoughtful" pose...and how about some fake smoke in the background illuminated by red and blue gelled lights?

 

robt.