Professional Portrait Lightings | Charles Abel
A very interesting book, both from the point of view of learning studio lighting and historical research into how portraits were worked in the 1940s.
The Photographer’s Associations of America invited 100 photographers to submit portraits accompanied by details of the lighting used, camera, lens, film, developer and settings, and this is the content of this book.
The layout is constant with the full-page photo on the left, the light scheme on the right and many photographers go into the aesthetic and even philosophical considerations that guided their choices.
For those who like optics and their history, it’s very interesting to see the correspondence between the types of portraits and the lenses chosen. I was struck by the very strong presence of soft focus lenses, especially the Wollensak Verito, especially in female portraits. Confirming what we often see in old manuals about using hard, sharp lenses for men and soft ones for women.
