2010
A classic beauty shoot photographed in my studio with a modern twist on the old tintype photographic process.
The Tintype (or ferrotype) process dates back to the US in the 1850's ... a lot of the Civil War photographs were tintypes. For this shoot it is a modern digital take on the process. I find it useful to try out new ideas and incorporate a modern twist on some of the old processes. It pays to keep pushing the boundaries and giving the clients something a little extra and different from the competition.
The idea was for the brilliant Somojo magazine which is dedicated to the Creative Arts.
I used a 5ft vertical striplight to the left and behind the model with a grid, a 28" beauty dish with a grid above the camera and small horizontal striplight below the camera to give a catchlight at the bottom of the eyes + a black reflector to the right. The striplight was set about a stop and a half higher than the beauty dish.
The images were shot digitally on a Nikon D3x with a Nikkor f2.8 70-200 lens. They were retouched in Photoshop CS5 firstly removing any blemishes then a little skin smoothing plus some contouring.
The digital tintype effect was created by converting the image to black and white and using a small amount of red filter to lighten the skintones. On another adjustment layer the contrast was tweaked to give richer blacks. The image was masked and painted to give a darker edged vignette. Then on another curves adjustment layer the red and blue channels were adjusted with the push towards red and yellow. Finally a layer of noise was added with a little Gaussian blur for good measure, this gave a slight film grain texture to the final images.
The model was Taylor from LMP
Hair & Make up by Sarah Heap ... using Mac, Nars and Stila cosmetics.
Some additional reading on the tintype process http://www.rleggat.com/photohistory/history/tintype.htm
For more information about lighting, how to create digital style tintype photographs or to book Rob for a beauty shoot in his London studio or on location please email the studio at studio@robertwilkinson.co.uk
XML Feeds