B+W Portrait Printing Style

[tlitody]

I was just looking at the Karsh website and his style of printing portraits. He seemed to use higher contrast for male portraits than female portraits. And interestingly he didn't seem to care about shadow detail too much. Now it may be that is just because of the way his website has been put together but if that was the case then I'd expect the female images to be much darker too.
Anyway, whats your take on whether a male portrait should be higher contrast than a female portrait in the 21st Century.
As it happens I was also just looking at the Notilux thread and Dierk just posted some lovely portraits one of which was
at post http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1434214&postcount=1186
so I took it and tweaked it in PS to use a printing style more akin to Karsh which you can see below. What I'm getting at here is whether today we should be looking at a softer rendition for portrait or whether harder is just fine or is it just as you feel about it at the time.
Whats your take on this?
View attachment 81718

 

[tomalophicon]

I was just looking at the Karsh website and his style of printing portraits. He seemed to use higher contrast for male portraits than female portraits. And interestingly he didn't seem to care about shadow detail too much. Now it may be that is just because of the way his website has been put together but if that was the case then I'd expect the female images to be much darker too.
Anyway, whats your take on whether a male portrait should be higher contrast than a female portrait in the 21st Century.
As it happens I was also just looking at the Notilux thread and Dierk just posted some lovely portraits one of which was
at post http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1434214&postcount=1186
so I took it and tweaked it in PS to use a printing style more akin to Karsh which you can see below. What I'm getting at here is whether today we should be looking at a softer rendition for portrait or whether harder is just fine or is it just as you feel about it at the time.
Whats your take on this?
View attachment 81718

Forget what style you think the era dictates and do what you feel helps you achieve your goal.

 

[tlitody]

Forget what style you think the era dictates and do what you feel helps you achieve your goal.

Yes but can we learn from the masters(influences) or do we ignore that and just go our own way regardless.

 

[Never Satisfied]

Personaly I prefer a bit more contrast for all of my portrait printing, but it isn't all that flattering.
There are a lot of old conventions when it comes to portraiture, men used to look slightly down at the camera and females up, I guess it's a dominance / submissive thing.
I guess it depends on who you are shooting for and their self image.
Andrew.

 

[robert blu]

High contrast B&W let me think of something aggressive, soften tones gives me an idea of sweetness. Aggressive can be the charachter of the subject, or the traces of the times on a face. Softer could be a tender girls. I think that at rthe end it depends on what the photographer wants to communicate, which can be related to the personality of the portraited subject.
robert

 

[tomalophicon]

Yes but can we learn from the masters(influences) or do we ignore that and just go our own way regardless.

No we should take influence from others. I was just saying that I don't think the style of the time should be what we aim for.

By the way the picture you posted is awesome.

 

[tlitody]

No we should take influence from others. I was just saying that I don't think the style of the time should be what we aim for.

By the way the picture you posted is awesome.

Not mine unfortunately. It was posted Dierk in the notilux thread I gave a link to. I just tweaked it to make a comparison with Karsh style.

 

[clayne]

Karsh' style wasn't just straight contrast. He, like Smith (although in a different way) made heavy use of pot-ferri bleach and printing down/post-bleaching to sweep the highlights upwards, overall and local. This is a different look than simply playing with contrast. Aside from that, lighting plays a huge part.

With regards to the influence portion of this thread - it's about what you are influenced by and connect with - not about being influenced by a particular style just for the sake of it. One doesn't have to listen or like everyone who's considered a "master."

 

[Soothsayerman]

There is no one way or the other to do it. It really is based upon what you are trying to achieve. What you need to understand is what each style does to the overall feeling of the portrait. Higher contrast ususally means more dramatic shots. You want more drama to something, ramp up the contrast. You want a softer more ethereal feeling, lower the contrast. When it comes to style, it's more of a personal thing.

Study old hollywood portrait styles and the use of light and contrast and you will really get a feeling for this. Shots done from the 1930's to the 1950's. These guys really used lighting and contrast (or lack thereof) to communicate an emotion.

 

[John Lawrence]

Study old hollywood portrait styles and the use of light and contrast and you will really get a feeling for this. Shots done from the 1930's to the 1950's. These guys really used lighting and contrast (or lack thereof) to communicate an emotion.

A good book on this is 'Hollywood Portraits: Classic Shots and How to Take Them' by Roger Hicks and Christopher Nisperos.

John