Portraits with LF

Kirks518 · Dec 26, 2015

So how do you do portraits? I'm pretty slow with my Calumet, between focusing, then inserting the holder, then pulling the slide, then actually releasing the shutter. Takes between 45-60 seconds. By then I'm too worried that my 'model' has moved a hair and will be out of focus. I see these LF images here and on LFF of casual portraits, and couldn't imagine taking the shot and being successful. The one time I did do a portrait, I had my daughter sit on a chair, and rest her chin on her hands on the back of the chair. It took so long, she refuses to do it again.

Ko.Fe. · Dec 26, 2015

Portraits looks really special if taken on LF. But I'm selling my Calumet and Crown Graphic for the same reason. It is slow and nobody is existed to wait for it.
I have better success with 135 RFs and scale cameras. My wife took many great family pictures with entry level film EOS Rebel camera as well.

Axle · Dec 26, 2015

I love using 4x5 for Portrait work! I really do need to explore it more. Anything with LF you gotta slow down, make sure your subjects know this. The real trick is to get the camera setup first, get a rough focus in, then pose/meter the model. Then focus, set, close go. Shoot shallow, f/16, and make sure the model understands the process and pick ones that are good at standing still. Have them use a neutral expression and shoot a fast film. Portra 400 or HP5/Tri-X.

garysamson · Dec 26, 2015

Almost all the portraits in my gallery are made with a 4x5 camera, one with an 11x14 camera and one with a 12x20 camera. With patience and collaboration from the subject LF portraits are very doable. Virtually every portrait made in the 19th century was made with a view camera and the much slower wet-plate process or dry plates towards the end of the century.

Kirks518 · Dec 26, 2015

@garysamson, what's the trick? Looking at your images like 'The Swimmers', 'Jax', 'Amelie in Barn', and 'Brianna', I couldn't imagine getting those shots in focus or without blur. Are you asking the subject(s) to 'freeze' once you focus? And only for them to relax after the close of the shutter? Or are you depending more on a large dof to offset any movements that may occur between your focusing, inserting, removing, and releasing the shutter?

removed account4 · Dec 26, 2015

garysamson said:
Almost all the portraits in my gallery are made with a 4x5 camera, one with an 11x14 camera and one with a 12x20 camera. With patience and collaboration from the subject LF portraits are very doable. Virtually every portrait made in the 19th century was made with a view camera and the much slower wet-plate process or dry plates towards the end of the century.

+1

same here,
lots of my portrait work is LF some 4x5 - 11x14 ..
like you said, its a collaboration, not a quick grab ..

Sirius Glass · Dec 26, 2015

Look at the portrait information on www.largeformatphotography.com/forum

removed account4 · Dec 26, 2015

Kirk518:

there are several different schools of working with LF to do portrait work.
some use SLR cameras ( you can google graflex SLR or go to graflex.org )
you put the film in and have it ready .. and focus and take the photograph without having
to deal with hoping the subject didn't move while you put the film in the back, its a SLR like a 35mm sort of thing.
otherwise it can be a formal setting where things are static, or knowing how to judge DOF and where to focus to
estimate/anticipate where the subject might be when you trip the shutter ... it really isn't much different than any other portrait making
other than a handful of other things to remember, and if you are stuck on a tripod, not being able to move ..
YMMV

Sirius Glass · Dec 26, 2015

What he ^^^^ said is spot on.

Jim Jones · Dec 26, 2015

The photographer often complicates LF portraiture by staying too close to the camera. If you have a model that tolerates the ridiculous, first focus on something like a light stand at the place and distance where you want the model to be. Run a string from the camera and tie a knot in it at the stand. Then place and pose the model. You can check fine details and, with the string, the focus while standing close to the model. When all is right, it only takes a moment to step aside and click! It's not quite the way Karsh photographed Churchill without his cigar, but close enough. You could have an assistant standing to the side of the model to verify the model's position along the camera's line of sight, but a mirror works, too. I haven't tested laser rangefinders to see if they are practical for a focus check. If you do a lot of portraits at a certain distance, improvising a long base rangefinder similar to the Graphic Focuspot or Rangelite might work.

MattKing · Dec 26, 2015

With respect to focus, you can use the same techniques as one might use for self portraits with manual focus cameras.

Props help, as does making sure that your subject is comfortable and relaxed both at the time of focus and at the time of exposure.

I work with roll film cameras, but I still prefer to have my eyes away from the viewfinder when I am shooting portraits - direct eye contact with your subject is very important.

bvy · Dec 27, 2015

Is anyone using headrests?

RobC · Dec 27, 2015

thats what rangefinders on LF cameras are for. You can load film holder, pull darkslide and be ready to trip the shutter as soon as you focus with the rangefinder. i.e. get the right tool for the job in hand.

mdarnton · Dec 27, 2015

I make the whole event about being shot with an 8x10 camera (they're already in awe once they see it, anyway) and the necessity for not moving. Encourage the subject to find a comfortable and stable position, then relax in it so that they don't have to think about supporting themselves. Give them something to lean against; often I use a small table that's out of camera view--even in front at thigh level as a body rest to keep them from wobbling around--or something small behind them. Sitting definitely helps. Talk to them while focusing about how once you get focused, they can't move. I keep telling what I'm doing all along, so that they understand where they are in the process and so they don't start to feel like it's infinite and indeterminate. When there's someone I can't get to sit still, I shoot in profile so the movement is mostly left-right relative to the lens, rather than toward-away.

All of this gives them a chance to think about something other than being self-conscious, and puts their attention outside of themselves. Usually something interesting happens to them when they're not thinking about them.

For me, it needs a change in thinking from my 35mm on-the-fly journalism approach. If I want pictures like that, I still use a small camera. [In the studio, for more active-type shots, these days I use digital because of its higher resolution/smaller grain, more like LF quality; outside the studio, I still shoot entirely film, though.]

I went to a Rembrandt and fakes art show a few years ago, and it was wonderful for me, to realize how the difference was how Rembrand's subjects were so settled and had weight, where the others' subjects floated in air on the canvas. Now when shooting portraits I think about how to help make people look heavy, anchored, and real rather than tight and posed.

I have thought about headrests. Many slow-film photographers just use something that lightly touches the back of the subject's head for reference positioning, rather than holding, but I haven't found it necessary, working the way I do.

My large format portraits: http://flickr.com/michaeldarnton

removed account4 · Dec 27, 2015

bvy said:
Is anyone using headrests?

hi bvy

i've never used a headrest ..
im lucky i guess, cause sometimes my exposures
have been 30+seconds long (some paper negatives ones have been that long )
like mdarnton, i work with my subject and tell them what is going on before i start focusing & settling in.
they know it isn't a grab-shot and we work together to find a pose that works and they can hold
they let gravity work with them to stay-put, breathe slow, close eyes, and relax until the shutter opens; it works well.
with other less formal things i set up and have a deep DOF because i am using a off camera flash as
a fill flash. usually ( all the time i mean ) it is a mix between ambient light and electric strobe ..
having a leaf shutter makes it easy to shoot at any speed and be sync'd, i usually am at about 1/60th or 1/30th
or faster or slower if i have to, it all depends on the light i am mixing
sometimes i bounce the flash or have it directed to where it needs to be without excessive reflection .. i have the camera focused
and use a release and stand aside the camera have a conversation or just watch if i am a fly on the wall ..
i used to have the flash mounted on the tripod mount of a speed graphic with a bacharach bracket ( wedding bracket )
focus, put the film in, use the lollipop finder and do things handheld, it worked OK but i'd rather have the camera on a tripod
and a flash attached with a pc cord that is long so i can put the flash or hold it where it might do the best work ... it doesn't need to be a large
format camera or a large flash, this technique worked fine with a 35mm and yeshiva TLR and a sunpack too ...

YMMV

Sirius Glass · Dec 27, 2015

Head braces: http://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?20102-head-braces

removed account4 · Dec 28, 2015

Ko.Fe. said:
Portraits looks really special if taken on LF. But I'm selling my Calumet and Crown Graphic for the same reason. It is slow and nobody is existed to wait for it.
I have better success with 135 RFs and scale cameras. My wife took many great family pictures with entry level film EOS Rebel camera as well.

once you get your composition, and focus down it takes as little or as much time as a grab-exposure with 35mm.
(a few years ago i was doing street photography in besancon france with a graflex slr, was as easy as with a leica )
the more you get comfortable / used to the larger camera, the less time/ effort it is setting up, focusing
and it will become easier making the portraits ... if the person you are photographing doesn't have the patience
to wait a few mins to take their portrait &c it probably wasn't worth asking them anyways, nothing is worse
than making a photograph of someone who is too busy, doesn't have the time, is annoyed, or won't do what you
politely ask them to do ...

Alan Gales · Dec 28, 2015

Jim Jones said:
The photographer often complicates LF portraiture by staying too close to the camera. If you have a model that tolerates the ridiculous, first focus on something like a light stand at the place and distance where you want the model to be. Run a string from the camera and tie a knot in it at the stand. Then place and pose the model. You can check fine details and, with the string, the focus while standing close to the model. When all is right, it only takes a moment to step aside and click! It's not quite the way Karsh photographed Churchill without his cigar, but close enough. You could have an assistant standing to the side of the model to verify the model's position along the camera's line of sight, but a mirror works, too. I haven't tested laser rangefinders to see if they are practical for a focus check. If you do a lot of portraits at a certain distance, improvising a long base rangefinder similar to the Graphic Focuspot or Rangelite might work.

Great advice!

Karsh had big balls!

Kirks518 · Dec 28, 2015

Great advice everyone, thanks. My only LF is a Calumet CC401, and no LF SLR in my future, so looks like next time I'll get everything setup ahead of time, and use string for the subject placement. I don't use it much, but I do love the way a portrait on LF looks.

Maris · Dec 28, 2015

I use an idea from Fred Picker: focus on a stand-in, insert the film holder, stop the lens down, cock the shutter, and pull the darkslide. When the portrait sitter arrives sit them in the same chair, tell them to look pleasant, and SHOOT. The first frame of a LF portrait session can be "fastest" shot in photography.

rrocco · Dec 28, 2015

All have given great advice. Takes enthusiasm and patience on part of subject and photographer, unless using SLR or Rangefinder cameras. I've surprisingly had success with shallow depth of field 8x10 portraits with small children using a simple home-made head brace.

Sirius Glass · Dec 28, 2015

Landscapes do not care how long you take to set up and focus. Give that a whirl.

Richard Man · Dec 28, 2015

I am doing 2 portrait projects with color 4x5. Shot well over 200 sheets now. Is it easy? No, of course not. Is it rewarding? YES!!

http://richardmanphoto.com/PICS/TransformationsCosplay-Portfolio/

http://richardmanphoto.com/PICS/WorldbuildersSFnF-Portfolio/

Kirks518 · Dec 28, 2015

Nice stuff Richard. I'm particularly enthralled with #23 in the first set.

Richard Man · Dec 28, 2015

Kirks518 said:
Nice stuff Richard. I'm particularly enthralled with #23 in the first set.

Thanks Kirk, our daughter Sunset with the full moon rising on the right. What's not to love?

Portraits with LF

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