Wow, John, those are stunning! They look so painterly, especially the first one.
Today I finally managed to leave my flat to photograph a friend and try natural light/long exposures with the large format camera, but the longest exposure was only a second as I felt kinda bad asking her to stay still for longer since it had already taken me ages to set up the camera and focus
In wetplate the sitters need to stay still for many seconds, if you're not using 2500Ws of flash power.. Wet plate photography is full of long exposures. They use "headrests" where the sitter places back of their head. The headrest is usually behind the model so it is not visible in the photo, sometimes it is. Check Shane Balkowitsch work for example.
I took a photo of my significant other and daughter last summer with 4 seconds exposure time on paper negative. Both completely sharp. My daughter was even holding icecream - it was her idea to make it even more difficult
Point is that they need to lean somewhere with their head. In previous example they were against birch tree so they had support.
Thanks for the encouraging words, John; you're right, I should try to do more and worry less about bothering the model. I have just written to another friend of mine who has a really big plant that she's quite proud of that I would like to take her portrait with the plant. That should be a perfect opportunity to experiment with long exposures.
This is the digital test for the longest exposure I have done today (I still have to develop the film), it was one second at f/16. I usually shoot portraits close up and wide open, so it was nice to try an environmental portrait with enough depth of field across the whole frame
that's nice ! 1 second ? can hardly tell .. im sure your friend can sit still like that for like 30sec ez pz ...
you like the wet plate look you should definitely try to shoot paper negatives, even in a 35mm or 120 format http://filmwashi.com/en/. ... not quite the same tonal range as wet plate but similar ...
I like that as well.
But note how the eyes appear - relatively lifeless.
It is tough for subjects to keep eyes stationary, even if they are able to stay otherwise still.
In olden days, when exposure times had to be long, re-touchers would add imitation catch lights to eyes afterwards in order to deal with just this reality.
Looking quickly through the examples on your site, this might work well with a long exposure:
View attachment 263556
With a small, sharp retoucher's knife (and some considerable skill) on the surface of the print.OMG, you're right! I knew there was something I didn't like about it, but I couldn't put my finger on it and you are spot on! How do you add catch lights?
The eyes are almost hidden - no catch lights to particularly worry about.I don't understand what you mean...the pose?
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