A Little Background

about the background.

Both the Missus and I graduated from high school fifty years ago. In those days your senior picture was taken in black and white with the standard package consisting of some wallet size, a couple of 4x5's and an 8x10. The 8x10 was hand colored and it typically looked very nice. In celebration of the 50th anniversary of our graduation, I want to take a nice black and white photo of both of us and then hand color them like the old days. Senior pictures of a couple of real seniors, as it were. I doubt if there is a professional studio anywhere left that could do this type of work now that everything has gone digital. I've done a bit of hand coloring and I've got the stuff, so how 'bout I give it a try.

I made the background out of a piece of luan plywood mounted to a frame made from 1x4's. The top of the frame is a 2x4 to give it a bit more strength where it will be hanging from the rafter in the new barn. The plan is the background will hang down when in use and then fold up against the rafters when not being used. I need to get some hardware to fasten it to the rafter when in the up position but other wise it's a done deal.

I still need to drag out the old lights and see what I've got to work with. I'm pretty sure I've got everything I need, but I need to try a couple of sample shots first. The old photoflood lights were super bright and hot. A couple of LED flood lights might work as well or better. They come in a daylight color balance but I'm not sure if they would be bright enough to work with without having to have too slow a shutter speed or an aperture opening too wide. The new light I just put up over the barn door has LED floods in it. I might set up a typical portrait lighting arrangement, install the LED bulbs and then take a meter reading and see what I've got. I've got some 100 ISO for the 4x5 camera and the twin lens both. Actually, I've got several different types of film for the twin lens but normally, slower speed equals finer grain which is better for portrait work. Of course, maybe old folks should be a bit more soft focus anyway. I don't want to end up with something that looks like my last drivers license photo.

So far I've only got $25-30 invested in the background and if all works well, I can use it for other photographic pursuits. I've been looking into doing some alternative process stuff - I made a couple of albumen prints a few years back. I'd like to try making my own glass plate negatives. I've got an old box camera that used those originally.  I shot a roll of film a couple of months back and I had a lot of fun both taking the shots and doing the darkroom work. Time to get back to doing a little more of it.