Hello! It’s been a while since my last entry mostly due to my lack of motivation to keep up with this journal regularly. But I’ll try to post more on here semi-regularly.
This entry is dedicated to experimenting with colored lens filters for black and white film and payjng attention to color for portraits.
Earlier this month I had the pleasure of photographing my buddy Nick, who is a musician and graphic designer based in SF. I asked to photograph him because I wanted to experiment with colored lens filters for black and white photography and it’s effects in portraiture specifically. Recently, I’ve been inspired by photographer, Jack Davison, who does semi-abstract black and white, as well as color portraiture that have a lot of contrast but utilize light to achieve an almost painterly look. My goal was to see if using colored filters could lead me to a similar result, minus the abstract aspect. I’ve used colored filters before for street candids or for a frame or two but never solely for one project. My go-to black and white color stock is Kodak Tri-X 400, but for this shoot I chose Cinestill BWXX film for its lower speed and it matched the tone I was aiming for. I also have some expired Fuji NPH 400 (circa 2008) that I wanted to use just for fun. I typically don’t use expired film that much anymore due to its inconsistent nature, but for this instance I figured why not?
For this shoot I really wanted to test the effects of the colored filter by using some color theory and color science. For example; yellow, orange, and red filters allow those wavelengths to pass through the lens resulting in those colors being brighter. Whereas complimentary colors such as blues, purples, and greens tend to be darker. I’m not going to go into the science behind it, but this was basically how I got the idea. Then I asked Nick to wear a white shirt and blue-ish button up and I switched between yellow and orange filters to see how the two filters would block out the blue wavelength. As for the color roll, I wanted to think about how I could keep the color palette to a minimum and focus on having the natural, complimentary color of Nick’s skin and shirt pop.
Overall, I’m really happy with the results and I want to experiment more with these color filters and play with colors more on an intentional level for both black and white as well as color film. I feel like there is a lot to learn to really use these techniques to the fullest.
Huge thank you again to Nick for letting me photograph him and testing out these ideas.
Shot on Cinestill BWXX and Fuji NPH 400 using a Hasselblad 500CM with a 80mm f2.8 Zeiss Planar and a 150mm f4 Zeiss C Sonnar T*.
