Betcha can't use just one, doc...

Why use one beauty dish when you have an entire school's worth of equipment at your disposal? That seemed like sound logic to me as I ransacked the the portrait studio bays next to mine of their lights, stands and beauty dishes. I could have gotten even more, but I didn't want to appear greedy. Photographers wax poetic about how gorgeous a beauty dish can be, and how if one is good, two is better. I never did hear anyone say if two is better than three must be overkill, so I went for it.

See a lighting diagram and more info after the jump.

It started innocently enough, I booked a model to do a shoot at the request of my retoucher back in Michigan. He sent makeup concepts, we picked a girl, and we were good to go. While the original idea was to have a lip-gloss centric shoot, we thought we would expand the number of looks we could get by starting with just the basic face and eye makeup first, then adding the lips in afterwards.

In the course of doing our initial shots, I noticed that my model had exceedingly long hair. Since most of my work has been lacking a hair stylist (this time as well unfortunately), I thought we could use the hair to frame and accentuate her face. My makeup artist wrapped the hair around her neck and held it to her back while I took a few frames, but I felt that something was lacking in the lighting. We already had a fairly large setup going, but it was typical of my older work as well. I wanted to push things a little bit.

In just a few minutes, I had three beauty dishes on booms positioned within inches of the model. The lightmeter that I had initially dreaded using was telling me to shoot at f/32 at ISO 50. Thats a whole lot of light, and they weren't even turned up the whole way.

I was afraid that I was actually taking a huge step back in technique, and that I would simply be blasting my model with too much light for the sake of using too much light. But even on the cruddy screen of the Aptus back, I could tell I had finally left that behind. Turning down the power slightly on the right beauty dish gave a little shadow for some definition and depth, but the overall light is even and smooth all the way across her face.

This shot ended up being a very last-minute submission for the best of college contest after a nearly sleepless night of retouching. It still has a little ways to go before being a final, polished image though. Sometime soon-Retouching post.

120 Marathon

Taking a huge step back in size, but a just a few steps forward in technology, I thought I'd show a few of the 120 film cameras that I've been playing around with since I started photography. Starting with the pictured 1967 Hasseblad 500c, it's a completely manual, utterly analog, electricity-less camera. And gorgeous to boot. Sure it may lack metering, precision shutter or film backs that are practically foolproof, but it's an absolutely amazing kit. It was previously owned by said portrait studio photographer that the 8x10 camera was obtained from, and it's in remarkable shape.

I'll admit that the Hasselblad has an allure about it, in part due to its lunar pedigree, and the current 50+ megapixel digital. And being primarily a Canon shooter, Carl Zeiss lenses are few and far between. This camera gave me the chance to use some vintage glass that promises to be even better than some modern day lenses. More toys, and a step in the other direction after the jump.

In complete and utter contrast to the Hasselblad's legendary mechanics and glass, we have my Holga CFN, which just decided to die sometime today. This was the first 120 film camera I ever owned, picked up between train stops from Hikone to Osaka, Japan. The 'dreamy', soft, messed up shots that emanated from this camera were more of a source of amusement for me than a real working camera, but weighing next to nothing made it easy to take along with me everywhere. While the shutter inside the lens is still working, the lack of a flash feature has doomed this camera to be disassembled, where its repair may be dubious.

My first twin lens reflex camera was this Rolleicord, a member of the Rolleiflex family. Slightly more compact than the Hasselblad, this came with a complete kit-leather case, meter, filters, lens adapters, and even one original magnesium-filled flashbulb. This was the first 120 camera that I would take outside to use as a normal point and shoot due to the surprisingly accurate analog light meter that bayonets onto the front. I also shot only black and white film, and used it to practice developing, with some help from my girlfriend.

But one of my favorite cameras is my RZ67, for several reasons. Not only did Annie Leibovitz use this type of camera for a huge amount of her studio work, I bought this while out in Seattle checking out Chase Jarvis' studio. I use this camera a lot of my own studio work, and it's so simple to use that I almost regretted getting my new Mamiya 645 for school. If I could have gotten my hands on the necessary adapter, I'd be using this camera instead. It has some of the best intuitive controls that I've seen on camera's like this, and the simplicity makes using it effortless. While it may be a bit of a beast in its weight class, I can comfortably handhold for an entire roll.

These are just my 120 MF film cameras, and while some may argue that it's even more irrelevant to have so many different ones when the only difference that matters is the film, I still feel that they're all appropriate for different situations, have different feels and even subject impact. The Rolleiflex gets stares and questions, the Mamiya makes people run the other way, and the Holga is ignored as if it were a cheap disposable camera.

Film may be dying out professionally, even as I start my career. But a surprising number of students still enjoy shooting film, and even some of them still develop in at-home darkrooms. Whether for nostalgia or for fun, film isn't going away quite yet. The people that still shoot film are the ones that will eventually be instrumental in saving it from extinction, just like in the impossible project's efforts to bring back Polaroid film to the huddled masses, but that's for another post.

It's Alive...

If film is dead, I want to be Dr. Frankenstein. I've been on such a film kick for the past year, it's kind of crazy. I've lost track of how many film cameras I have now, but I just added two very nice retro jewels to my collection. Pictured here is a Burke and James 8x10 view camera. this thing is a beast, I don't even have a picture of the full setup with the rolling stand yet. The camera itself weighs about 20lbs, is solid wood, and has definitely seen better days. But luckily enough for me, it still operates, sort of, and only took $1.04 in parts to get it back together.

Ever since our guest speaker at Hallmark, Barbara Bordnick talked about doing portraits with Polaroid 8x10's, I've been a little obsessed with the idea. The images she showed us were hauntingly beautiful, and I think that film is undoubtedly a more sincere way of capturing a true portrait. Sure its easier with digital, and sure no one may be able to tell the difference, or care, but its an entirely personal thing to me. This is as close to my photography as I can get.

Finding a cheap, used 8x10 camera was easy in my mind, but it took a little bit of searching. It wasn't until a craigslist ad listing cheap hasselblad film bodies did I even stumble upon this one. And to sweeten the deal, the photographer selling this equipment knew my portrait teacher here at Hallmark, Rich Barnes. The whole deal turned into a steal for me, and I wasn't even expecting to get what I really wanted. It was almost in passing that a pack of polaroid 8x10's, a processor and a holder were thrown in.

A couple of wood screws and some fiddling later, the camera is temperamental, sticky, and still just as heavy, but I can see an image on the ground glass. An 8x10 film holder is definitely needed before I try out what may be one of the few remaining packs of 8x10 polaroid in the world. But now, all thats left to do is check to see if the packard shutter behind the lens will sync with some pocket wizards.

Life and death appeared to me ideal bounds, which I should first break through, and pour a torrent of light into our dark world. -Victor Frankenstein