What film for victorian

[Grahamb]

Morning all.

I am going to shoot the lady and her young man, and baby, i do like to think of a theme to do when doing portraits, and i came up with the victorian theme.

Like the half light, to dark, one lamp on, that brown colour.

I do except a lot can do with how i work in the dark room, and have used many toning chemicals and got what i wanted.

To start, film, i have used hp5, and tmax, and tri x, fav that one. After the shoot and into the dark room, the norm is to use fiber paper, a little seli, and tones.

Any suggestions would be greatly excepted, on all.

I am going to town in an 1 1/2 hours to get what i may need, as i have a fair few films in the fridge.


Regards Graham

 

[Richard G]

One thing I would try, whatever else, is slow shutter speeds, even with the baby. The whole process of a 1s exposure alters the interaction and the subtle motion blur even if she (her mother) keeps still, will add something. The drama of the cooperation required is evident in the result.

 

[Doug]

For that brownish color, you'll probably want to replace the selenium toning with sepia toner. Gather some Victorian era props and clothing?

 

[Ed Bray]

Camera format will also have a lot to do with it and if using smaller formats you will need to use wide apertures to get the shallow depth of field that is required, this may prevent the use of fast film as you (as previously stated) will need slow shutter speeds.

It is worth looking at images from the time from respected photographers such as Julie Margaret Cameron & David Octavious Hill.

Here is one I did a while ago trying to emulate the photograph 'Mary Mother' by Julie Margaret Cameron.

I persuaded my wife to pose for me in a similar way to Julia Margeret Cameron's image 'Mary Mother'. The hood and cowl is some old black material I once had made up to skirt the base of my model railway, and the background is one of my old coloured popup BGs from when I was a proper photographer.


Nikki Mother (in the style of JMC) by Ed Bray, on Flickr

Nik was lit just by the light coming through the front room bay window and using Adox 25 gave me an exposure of 4 seconds at f11 with a Schneider Symmar-S 240mm f5.6 lens on my Horseman LX 4"x5" Monorail Camera.

 

[Grahamb]

That is a very nice image, that is very much the theme, old but tells a story, (oh i do not mean that in the lady in the image) but yes just enough light.

Thank you for your post, the camera will be mf, 645 / 6x6

Beautiful print

 

[x-ray]

Emulsions in that era were ortho not panchromatic and the look is quite different. Also modern lenses are too contrasty and sharp as a rule. 35mm didn't exist and most images were shot on larger film like half plate or roughly 4x5. 5x7 was quite comin as well as whole plate which was 6.5x8.5 inches. Petzval lenses were very common and provided a very shallow depth of focus with a very sharp center and focus falling off very quickly. Symmetrical and rapid rectilinear lenses were sharper across the field.

You're going to have a tough time making it authentic looking.

The attached image is a 5x7 ambrotype I shot on black glass using a 1870's rapid rectilinear lens.

 

[x-ray]

Here's a portrait I shot on collodion wet plate on black glass (ambrotype) using a 1860's French Darlot Petzval lens. It's on 8x10 and the lens is roughly a 350mm f4.

 

[x-ray]

Here's one more ambrotype on black glass. It's a half plate shot with a #2 Ajax Petzval made by B&J. It's about 10.5 inches and f5. Beautiful rendering from this lens.

Collodion wet plate emulsions only see blue, UV and some green. Note how skin is rendered.

 

[x-ray]

Collodion emulsions are extremely slow. I formulate my own and the iso is roughly 1. This was a 14 second exposure at f5 and using around 1000 watts of 6500k cfl light. It is very slooooowww. The color comes from the emulsion itself and fixing in potassium cyanide. Collodion only has about 4-1/2 stops of tonal range.

 

[leicapixie]

http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=137727

http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=137727

my suggestion is do what you are comfortable with.
use a film you know and enjoy.
Try if possible to use shutter speeds of 1/4:1/8:1/15.
slight motion, makes for nice portraits.
if using toner, make sure well washed prints..
another way have a scan and print digitally sepia.
OH! use a lens 85mm/105mm or equivalent,
maybe softar filter.