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Response to lighting...contrast...

from Mike Dixon (mike@mikedixonphotography.com)
The short answers to your questions: Carefully applied light, overexposure, and push processing the film to increase contrast. I've tried something similar to this but haven't seriously tried to work out the details. (I have a related idea involving similar procedures but producing a different final result that I'll probably be testing in the next month.)

The image below is a step in the direction of what you're looking for, not a serious attempt at achieving the look you've described.

This was shot on outdated Kodak 100HC (High Contrast) pushed one stop. The lighting was very flat from heavily overcast skies. This was scanned on an old scanner; the shadow detail is better on the slide. I set exposure by taking a spot reading of her face at EI 160, then opening up about 1.5 stops.

Since my subject's hair was so dark, I would have needed to light it significantly more (preferably with a more specular source) to give it the kind of "pop" in your manipulated image.

The big jump in contrast in your image would need something like a two-stop push. And you'll need to keep the lighting fairly flat to keep the shadows from losing too much detail.

(posted 8125 days ago)

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