Assignment 8: Portraiture and Light

Stephanie Zhong

I shot this picture using a 4*5 view camera in my friend's apartment in palo alto. Having a storyline in my mind, I staged the scene, chose all the props, dressed my friend up, and directed her to pose for me.

I tried to achieve a high control of details including the angle of how much the background door was open. Instead of using professional studio light gears, I managed to utilize all the available desk lamps, light torches, and white pillow cases instead.

There is no built-in light meter in view cameras, and I use a separate light meter. I wanted to capture the details in black, hence rather than pointing at mid-gray, I first pointed the light meter at my model's hair (the blackest part) and then went 2 stops down so that the overall picture is not overexposed.

I developed the TRIX320 films by myself and then scanned this negative into computer. Very minimum photoshop retouching was done (primarily about spotting and no editing on the light sources).

I shot this picture with a small aperture and a 8 sec long exposure. I suggested my model to keep her body perfectly still yet slightly move her hand (so that there is an interesting twist in this picture: the newspaper is motion-blurred).