The National Portrait Gallery in London has a fascinating exhibition, showcasing the work of the Hollywood publicity stills photographers from the twenties to the sixties, the golden age of the silver screen.
I was immediately struck by the quality of the images, which were of course impeccable, but also by some of the technical aspects – the images all share a silky smoothness of tone, with no brilliant whites nor jet blacks…and many of the images were a little soft focus. This was evidently intended, for these images were shot on 10″ x12″ negatives. The reason for the size of negative was to facilitate manual retouching in a pre-Photoshop era.
In one cabinet a retouched negative was on show, showing the deft paint strokes needed to ‘gild the lily’.
Some techniques are timeless – the use of ‘harder’ light sources with correspondingly harder shadows when shooting male stars for example. I also noticed that in a few instances the photographer had used a high main light with the men – so the brow cast a deep shadow in the eye socket, emphasising menace and mystery.
Amongst the wondrous photos, in the main collected via original negatives, by John Kobal, were a few telling ‘behind the scenes’ images. Four or more cinema lights were being used to light the subject, who was surrounded by a team of make-up artist, hair stylist, photographer, assistant – all dwarfed by the enormous large format bellows camera on its pedestal. The main advantage of using continuous light sources is that the final result of lighting placement can be accurately predicted – the downside would have been the enormous heat they generate!
For a photographer It really useful studying images such as these, working out the placement of the lights. I can’t wait to get back in the studio to recreate some of these lighting set-ups!
This exhibition is nearing the end of its run, but if you do get the chance, you will find it is well worth a visit.