studio portrait advice needed

[Trevor Crone]

Alan here are some of August Sander's images

He is probably my favourite people photographer - certainly influenced the likes of Walker Evans

[TonyMiller]

Originally Posted by Alan Clark

Tony, I will ask about the piano, but I'm not sure if they could have got one in through the restricted doorways.
PM me if you are planning a visit home sometime.

Alan

Thanks, will do.

- Tony

[Alan Clark]

Many thanks Trevor. An inspiration!

Alan

[Richard Gould]

Can't help with people pictures, but I do a lot of still life using natural light, I have a huge east facing window, and use reflectors to fill in and always prefer incident to reflected light reading, it sounds like a terrific opertunity and I am looking forward to hearing how it goes, and perhaps seeing some of the results,Richard

[Alan Clark]

Thanks Richard,

Alan

[Martin Aislabie]

Congratulations Alan, you are very lucky to have a purpose built studio to play with

Sheets of expanded polystyrene (available from B&Q) make great fill in reflectors, very white and very light - they can be balanced against almost anything without fear of knocking it over.

Black velvet (available on e-bay) is the best thing to suck up light.

The Velvet can be draped over the sheets of polystyrene as required to make shadow killers as it deepens shadows and gives extra direction to the often very soft light from a north facing window.

Try playing with moving your subjects/victims nearer to and further away from the window - it changes the evenness of the light significantly light.

Fast film and open apertures goes without saying

Have fun

Martin

[Alan Clark]

Thanks for the advice Martin. There is some black velvet at the museum, and there may even be some polystyrene. I like the idea of this as it won't do any damage if it falls over.
I also like your word "victims" !

Alan

[Terry S]

Now I know that this is a really old thread, but hopefully Alan Clark will see this, as I just want to ask how the sessions at the museum natural light project went, way back when? (I'll PM him after a while if there is no response, but I know Alan is still about. )

Also, has anyone else done anything like this more recently and has maybe a picture or two to share, along with notes of how the session went?

Terry S

[Alan Clark]

I did one session. I made a neutral background to hang behind the sitter (another volunteer). The wall opposite the window is light coloured so it reflected some light back into the shadows. I used an RB67 and HP5, and took 10 photos. Frustratingly, there was something slightly wrong with every one, though they were fine technically. I ended up painting a large portrait of the sitter, combining the best bits of two of the photos. The sitter later died, but his widow has the painting hanging in her dining room.
I didn't use the studio again because , as a workshop volunteer, there is always lots of work to do, and it doesn''t do to be seen swanning about! But the workshop has the same North light, and I have done quite a bit of 35mm informal portraiture in there, of my fellow volunteers.

Alan

[Terry S]

Much appreciated reply Alan. Some interesting points and a shame about others.

Many thanks.

Terry S