Is this work done in Ortho film

[herbet]

I really admire the work of Andreas Bitesnich. Does any body know if his work is done in Ortho film or have any lead on how to get these rich skin tones?

http://www.bitesnich.com/index2.html

[doug_mcgoldrick2]

Ortho film is a very high contrast film used mostly in the printing

industry. I'd say he is using regular old b/w film. The tones are

probably achieved buy using large format film and very careful

processing and printing. Although he maybe be using scala which is a

b/w transparency film but I doub't it.

doug

[charlie_strack]

The most common ortho films today are, indeed, those high contrast

films used for printing. But continuous tone ortho is available (from

Ilford and others), and could produce the skin tones shown. An

alternative is to use panchromatic film and a filter.

[ted_kaufman]

It's not ortho. It's just well crafted b&w.

[pete_andrews]

There's certainly something odd, and IMHO, ugly about those B&W skin

tones. The nude on the beach, for example, has hardly any separation

between skin tone and sand, sea, or sky. I suspect that the originals

were all shot in colour, and B&W prints made from colour neg or from

scans.<br>Alternatively, a heavy body tan or make-up may have been

applied to the models. In any case, it's not a look I feel a desperate

urge to emulate.

[xosni]

It can be ortho film or heavy filtration, but ortho films are not

necessarily lith films. Maco (maybe the best B&W films available on

the planet) has continuous-tone ortho films in 120 at 25, 100, and

400.

 

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Xosni

[georg_kern]

I once saw a picture of A. Bitesnich, where he was holding a Fuji AF

6x4,5. Also, some of his outdoor work is a little bit out of focus

(by the way, he is a grat photographer, and I am just an amateur, so

this is nitpicking), which would not be untypical for this type of

camera.

For the film (again outdoor pictures), I suppose it's a chromogenic

one, printed high contrast on warmtone (FB) paper.

 

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georg

[herbet]

Thanks for all the repplies.

I found an old issue of the French PHOTO magazine whith a brief

interview with him (he never comments on the techniqhues). There are

about 5 of his pictures (all outdoor) and the captions with his

comments say that 4 of them where taken in 35mm using Ilford Delta

and only one (centerfold size) was taken with a Mamya RZ67 loaded

with TriX. In all of them he mentions that only natural light was

used.

In one of the pictures a girl is sit on a big old wooden box with

CocaCola all over. I assume that was red painted. The box is almost

black in the picture (blue or red filter?). What boggs me though is

that the blue California desert skies are really dark as well. Split

printing? How would you even out all the tones?

I tried a roll of Delta with Green and Blue filters yesterday. The

skin tones look similar, but skin blemishes are terribly accentuated.

If he's using filters, the make up ought be heavy.

 

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BTW, his book Nudes got the Kodak award as book of the year in 1998.

He got raves reviews saying that he work combines the graphism of

Herb Ritts, the strength of Mapplethorpe and the lightness of

Schatz. Nowadays he's considered in Europe as THE nude photographer.

 

<p>

 

Any more thoughts on how to reproduce that, guys?