'Golden Age' Hollywood Portraiture

‘Golden Age’ Hollywood Portraiture

Humphrey Bogart

Lighting gives the sense of a heroic character. The shadows aren't dark enough to give him a 'bag guy' look. He is looking away from the camera. This gives a sense of importance as he has something better to look at rather than the camera.

George Raft

Harsh shadows. Light source is coming from above and slightly to the left. The higher camera angle disrupts the theme of these photographs. Suggests that he may be a character of less importance.

James Cagney

Quite a high lighting ratio. Dark shadows, bright highlights. The dark background could suggest the character is a bad person. High angled light gives strong shadows under the brows and chin, giving a sinister look. Also looking away from the camera.

Errol Flynn

Very heroic pose. Light is focused on the face, coming from the direction he is looking in. Slightly lower camera angle, showing his importance. Looking away from the camera.

Marlene Dietrich

Shallow depth of field in this shot is unusual with these images. Lower camera angle gives her a sense of importance. Harsh lighting from behind separates her from the background while the softer lighting on the face brings out her facial structure. Also looking away from the camera.

Lauren Bacall

High angled lighting gives strong shadows underneath her facial features. These give her a sense of dominance and power. She is clearly a character who can control men. This is also shown in her facial expressions. Looking directly at the camera.

Audrey Hepburn

The lighting and shadows are a lot softer on this photograph than the others. It is completely level with the head and the subject is staring directly into the camera. The light source is high up and in front of the subject.

Barbara Stanwyck

A lot of midtones throughout the image, and a few harsh shadows, however there are hardly any highlights. The lighting must have been quite soft. The subject, again, is not looking towards the camera.

All of these images use quite harsh lighting, which gives strong shadows and highlights. Seeing this style of lighting on females today would be seen as quite unusual as much softer, diffused lighting is used most of the time.

A common theme with these photographs is the model looking away from the camera. This gives the idea that they are important and have something better to look at. Some of them are also shot at a lower angle than the subject so the viewer is looking up at them. This shows they are an important person or ‘authority figure’.

This is the photograph I tried to recreate in the studio:

I started off with taking a few test shots just to get the pose sorted. I ended up having my subject sitting on a low chair while resting his right arm on a stool positioned next to him. I then got my subject to look away to the left of the camera and I tilted the camera slightly to help with the head tilt.

The shot required two light sources. One of the lights was positioned to the right and slightly forward of the subject. It was also positioned quite high up to create the harsh shadows underneath the lip of the cap, the nose and the chin. The other light had a snoot attachment and was positioned to the left and slightly behind the subject. This was to illuminate the left side of the face without spilling too much light onto the rest of the face.

This was the shot straight from camera:

These are the edits I made in Adobe Camera Raw to the image to achieve my final image. These changes mostly consisted of making adjustments to the exposure, highlights, contrast and shadows. I felt that the image was quite flat to start with. To make the image 'pop' I increased the contrast and the highlights so parts of the face the light was falling on were more visible. I also made a few adjustments to the sharpness of the image as the photograph I was trying to duplicate also looked quite sharp.

This is my final result: