Capturing images in a studio can be traced back before the invention of the camera, to the portrait painters many hundreds of years ago. They used techniques of lighting up the subject, to allow them to see them in the way they want to paint it. The painters would build studios with north facing windows (if they lived in the northern hemisphere) so that the least direct sunlight entered the room. This gave the room natural lighting but it would appear diffused as it did not come straight from the sun (as the sun would not appear north of the studio location). This diffused lighting was the perfect environment for the subject to be seated in as no harsh shadows caused by direct sunlight would be cast across them. The Painters would position the subject accordingly to the window, normally above and to one side of the subjects face.
This is an image of Monet's studio, and as you can see the large skylight allows lots of light to enter the room but as the window faces north the light that is entering is light that has been diffused by the world outside.
This portrait of Galileo Galilei was painted by Justus Susterman in 1636, and from this you can figure out the layout of the studio the painting took place. The light is strongest on the left side of the subjects face and so Galilei was probably sat with the north facing window at his 2 o'clock. This is a very fundamental setup in portraiture as the light casting a darkened area to the opposite side of the face creates depth, which is giving the painting more dimension and reality.
This portrait of Abraham Lincoln was taken in 1863 using a process in photography called daguerrotype, which is basically a way of instead capturing an image onto a CCD chip or film, as we know today, capturing it as a direct positive on a silvered copper plate that reacts to light and is processed in the dark room. you can see in this photograph that Lincoln is positioned with a window that is letting in diffused sunlight and so is casting a soft light over his face creating a 'big side' and 'small side' of the face being as the light source is to the side of the subject and not straight on adding depth, just as painters practiced in their work.
This photograph of Charles Baudelaire was taken by Étienne Carjat and there is quite a story behind it. Baudelaire was a French poet who declared that "Photography is a refuge for failed painters" Yet as photography slowly became a more accepted art form, Baudelaire so-come to the realisation that photography was a new era of art and had several times posed for portraits including in the image above.
At the time of these early stages of photography there was a major disadvantage compared to painted portraits as colour photography was not yet invented. However, hand colouring the photographic images did become popular, but did not look that convincing. Still, this technique was in high practice well into the mid 20th century as colour film printing was very expensive.
This photograph is a portrait photograph of a man named Friedrich Wencil, and as you can see the the photographer, Nancy C. Much Ross, has used a hand painted technique to fill the colour onto the areas to most closely resemble the 'real life' tones, but as you can probably tell it does not look that real to life.
Artificial lighting came into the use of photographers as cameras became more advanced and it was realised that more advanced lighting effects could be created over a subject by using more than one light source. Flash Powder was the first method to which artificial lighting was used to illuminate a subject for a photograph. Flash powder was found not to be very safe at all as the debris created was known to set fire to anything within a close radius most often the photographer's clothing and there had been many cases of photographers receiving burn scars to their skin after an accident with this highly flammable substance.
Flash Powder Photography Video
This video shows the flash technique in use and as you can see the powder does burn very bright and does the job well but there are other difficulties to this technique aside from its dangerous reputation. You can see in the text photograph that is taken that the flash produces burning embers as debris and these can shoot in front of the lens creating a glowing streak, potentially ruining a photograph. The other disadvantage that was also mentioned in the video is that the powder can burn quite unstable and will produce different intensities of light and so it can sometimes be hard to set the right camera exposure (the photograph taken in this video was a little over exposed).
These are the apparatus' used for creating the powder flash; the 'T' shaped object is used to hold the powder along it's length in the tray and a small trigger on the handle is used to ignite the chemical.
Here, a man uses the powder flash technique for a photograph.
In the 1930's advances in the development of camera lenses, and studio lighting techniques meant that a new era of photography in a controlled environment was upon us. The biggest and probable most considerable change was the introduction of film photography which would come on a reel so that multiple images could be captured before needing to reload the camera. This new technology of film also introduced better choice of shutter speeds as the ISO of film was faster.
Hot lights became a popular studio lighting technique around the 1940's and are almost acting as an available light source as the light was turned on and positioned before the photographer even stood to the camera to capture the image. Tho photograph above shows a studio set up from the 40's using hot lights to light the subject and scene. You can also see that the photographer is holding a shutter release in his hand as he has already framed the subject but he wants to take the photograph immediately after positioning the model correctly, as the time it takes to for him to get back behind the camera the movement of even breathing could move the subject out of sync from the light; hence why the photographer is up close watching the way the light is hitting the subject.
During the 40's studio photographers moved towards studio flash technology but they were pretty dangerous just as powder flash was in that they could explode and plus with the expense of replacements most people stuck with tungsten hot lights until the 70's when flash's became affordable and safe.
It is in the last 10 years that studio photography as become of age with our massive advancements in camera technology, lighting technology and post production rendering to perfect an image. With this advance in studio photography many different genres have opened up.
- Portraiture
- Fashion
- Advertisement
- Still Life
The list goes on...
What all these have in common is that they are all communicating a message, for example a fashion photographer has to convey the idea of glamourising the ordinary, just as a portrait photographer has to communicate a personality.
The methodology of Studio photography is that the photographer is in total control of everything that is being created in the picture, meaning that a good starting point would be an empty studio.
The background may be complex or it would be a simplistic white backdrop, but whatever environment the subject appears in has everything to do with the idea of the photograph and should be as equally important to convey the ideas behind it.
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