Shawna by Window Light

Shawna is a 42 year old (at the time this photo was taken 4 years ago) mix of French and Creek Indian heritage and is simply a breathtakingly beautiful woman, for ANY AGE. Nothing is more flattering for portaiture than diffused window light, especially for a woman who is no longer in her 20's with a perfect complexion and no age lines. I placed a reflector to her left to open up the shadows some. Taken with an F4S, 85mm f/1.4 AIS and Kodak Portra, by far the best film for portraiture. The negative was scanned with a Nikon Super Cool Scan LS8000 scanner at 4000 dpi.



I thought I would throw this one as an afterthought. Although Shawna was born in the 60's she is a HUGE fan of the 50's. That is her red 1959 Ford Thunderbird that she had completely restored. She is wearing a hand made (she makes almost all of her own clothes and is very talented at it) red dress. Shot with an F2S and 105mm f/2.5 AIS with Tri-X with fill flash. We chose a 50's style diner for the location of this shoot. It was just perfect!

If I was shooting a portrait with a hand holding her face like this I wouldn't shoot it as tight as you have...Apart from that the lighting is good and the pose is nice...

Very nice sir...the two best lenses in the world in my books...but I will argue with you about one thing.

Porta is awesome I love it too but I think 160S is by far the best skin film in the world...especially for the pink! LOL

Eye-level said:

Very nice sir...the two best lenses in the world in my books...but I will argue with you about one thing.

Porta is awesome I love it too but I think 160S is by far the best skin film in the world...especially for the pink! LOL

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From my experience, I think the best portrait film ever was Vericolor III Professional (VPS) but that is long gone. VPS was the best stuff I have ever used, at least for reversal film, when it came to reproducing the reds in skin tones and it was sharp as a tack. In fact, it was too sharp in a lot of applications, especially with women's portraiture. In fact I used to place a Cokin diffusion filter under the enlarging lens to take a little of the edge off of it.

pedroj said:

If I was shooting a portrait with a hand holding her face like this I wouldn't shoot it as tight as you have...Apart from that the lighting is good and the pose is nice...

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Out of curiosity, why? I wanted this portait to be a very close and intimate one and in that vein I really did not see a need to show her entire hand, or for that matter, even the very top of her head. This image was not cropped horizontally, just vertically to 8 x 10 proportions

I haven't been around cameras long enough to have used the VPS but I'll take your word for it. Funny that Porta came up because I was just last night thinking about ordering some Porta 400 in preparation for spring.

Eye-level said:

I haven't been around cameras long enough to have used the VPS but I'll take your word for it. Funny that Porta came up because I was just last night thinking about ordering some Porta 400 in preparation for spring.

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Honestly. unless you actually require the ASA 400 speed, you are better off going with the ASA 160 Professional version. The saturation is a little better in my opinion, as is the sharpness. There is a noticeable, though not objectionable, increase in grain with the extra 1.33 stops of film speed. In medium format, those differences are not as marked due the smaller amount of magnification needed, but in 35mm they are. I can spot the two apart right away side by side, even in 8x10, but especially in 11x14

I usually use 100 or 160 film because most of the time I do the outdoor daylight thing (because I don't like flash or lights). I was thinking the 400 to maybe be able to get somewhere indoors but I think I will take your advice and stick with the 160 for the most part and get maybe a roll or two of the 400.

STM said:

Out of curiosity, why? I wanted this portait to be a very close and intimate one and in that vein I really did not see a need to show her entire hand, or for that matter, even the very top of her head. This image was not cropped horizontally, just vertically to 8 x 10 proportions

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I'm not saying your image is wrong...It's a personal thing,it's what I like...