Michelle

This image is from the series about Croatian People. Whole series was

photographed to have a look and feel of old Hollywood Glamour shots.

I used B/W film with soft filter then I added grain and slight glow

in PS. In 1920's lenses and film were very soft, so it is difficult

to get same effect with modern equipment.

looks really 20's....! great work here

Thanx Marita. I think you are the only one that understood what I was trying to acomplish here, and how difficult is to get exact look of that era

I like the composition here and believe the soft focus has been used very effectively. I also appreciate the expression that you've captured of Michelle. What I am not as sure about here, is the grain added to the image. It's as if the soft focus AND grain do not quite belong on the same image. An oxy-moron if I may say...so to speak. Still, it is by choice, so perhaps the 1920s were noted for just such a look. Either way, it's a lovely capture. Very well done!

Thanx Vincent, as I answered your comment on other image ( Park Ave) I'm glad that you saw what I was trying to accomplish here. I'm not on this site long, but I see that that quite few people just rate pictures without paying attention how something is done, while their portfolios need quite improvements, especially ones that rate pictures low. I thought they would like to learn something.

 

I'm happy with that shot. Michelle was very sweet girl that was acting very tough, but I kind of captured what she is really all about. Grain comes up as you adding the glow. There are few parameters to that technique (filter) and grain is one of them. I have a picture of my mother, done in 1950's in Croatia, that inspired me to do this series. Picture had that quality and it was done on some strange paper that had relief on it. I started to do some research and I came across few books on glamour shots of 1920's,..

Thanks for the tip on how to create the "20s" look. I think this is a great capture (much better than the ratings suggest) I do feel that the grain is a bit much though. great light and tones though!

Mister "Z" stop by and gave his ratings,....

Well, grain is touchy subject. In the era of super fine grain films and Megapixel images, grain is lost, but in my opinion can be good if used the way old pictures used to be. ( Just like sratching of old LPs vs CDs) Grain was part of the old shots and I do like to work with grain. It also give softness, instead of perfect sharpness showing every pore and every imperfection on the face

This is really a very good capture. The grain is actually growing on me.

 

Mr. Z rates practically everybody on the site. He's actually very consistent. I have over 70 images and he has rated every one of mine as well. Because he does rate everybody and not just a few selected people, it all even out in the end. No worries.

Girl with a Shadow (B/W) is another extreme. I used Technical Pan film ( which is a copy film) and developed it with very low contrast, to be able to render midtones and I have eliminated grain all together. However, effective speed was 12 ASA, but on 35 mm film, it gave resolution of medium format. However, I used Canon "L" Lenses which are very sharp, 85/1.2L which is my favourite

Please look at this softy one!,

 

http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=1989650

 

--darko

It looks beautiful to me.

 

I belive that your idea has a lot of potential and I would love to see it all pictures.

 

Pozdrav iz Rijeke

I agree with Marita here, very 1920s... such a beautiful mood to this photo; almost as though it's a frame from an old film, in the middle of a love scene:)