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 Christopher Nisperos "Making of" photos:
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„That '50's Feeling“ I have been making large format portraits using Schneider lenses since I was 16 years old (I'm now 51). At that time, I had been given a 4x5 Crown Graphic camera equipped with a 135mm Xenar lens, and my younger sister was obliged to sit and pose for me, because the cat kept running away. The cat was wrong, because today, those portraits are some of the best I've ever taken! Beginner's luck? Maybe. But I believe that excellent equipment, plus knowledgeable use --plus a little luck-- will always give excellent results. Schneider is a good partner in such a formula. The theme I chose for creating portraits for Schneider's "Making Of" web pages ---- "That '50's Feeling" ---- comes from my first influence in portraiture: the covers of Life magazine in the late 1950's and early 1960's. As a small child, I would eagerly thumb-through this magazine every week when it arrived in the mail, looking at all the pictures. Even at my young age, the high quality of the large format portraiture I was looking at was obvious to me . This magazine portraiture of course, is NOT the so called "Hollywood portraiture" in the style of George Hurrell and so many other great names, but instead, simply the editorial portraiture of the time. Philippe Halsmann was considered to be a master of this genre.
Large format portraits of that era exhibited a look and a certain mixture of aesthetic qualities which can be difficult to reproduce today, --not technically so, but in mindset-- because they speak to tastes which are no longer fully appreciated. Today, this "retro" look is sometimes seen as kitchy and, even comic ... yet these are the very reasons I find the genre interesting. However, I enjoy this portraiture not only for it's humoristic value, but also because it's seriously good! Portraits taken with smaller formats and lit by softbox or umbrella don't seem to bring out the real dimensional qualities of a subject, as compared to the 1950's --or "Hollywood"-- portraiture style. They don't "pop", as the French say. This has to do with the crispness of the lighting and optics, preserved in the high fidelity of the large format. This style can often be simultaneously glamorous and banal, or classy and trite.... wonderful contradictions which today serve as visual metaphors for the period itself. In any case, the portraiture of that era was always eye-catching and usually in very sharp focus. Perfect for showing the qualities of a Schneider lens! CONCEPT In order to make an authentic-looking 1950's portrait
--and to reflect
The second "making of" photos were taken during a
session to create a straightforward portrait of a young man who wanted
something in the spirit of Marlon Brando or James Dean in the 1950's.
He was chosen, in part, for his excellent cheekbone structure which
helped show-off the lighting. This portrait is in low key and is more
theatrical than the LUX magazine cover. |
