InFocus - Shooting Glamour/Processing issues

This image was sent in to InFocus for analysis by one of our Basic Photography students in Bahrain, Dale Matthews. More of his work may be found on our student gallery.

Glamour Photography is not just about showing a man or woman in an attractive pose. It is also about being technically perfect. Glamour photography should hide faults and also accentuate the most attractive features of the subject.

The pose must be good and while a lot of glamour images are of the 'soft focus' variety this does not mean out of focus. Lighting the glamour image is of vital importance if we are to convey a glamorous image and hide those little blemishes we all possess. Bearing these points in mind we will now take a look at this image in more detail.

Technical Quality

It is important with glamour photography to focus on the eyes. They are indeed the mirrors to the soul. It is also the first place on the print you would naturally look upon.

Focusing here is spot on, with the necessary depth of field to keep the entire face sharp whilst throwing the background out of focus.

Unfortunately the poor print quality does not do the subject justice.

The image clearly shows processing faults as shown here. The area at the left of the image shows a lightened area. This is not overexposure. This is caused by the print not being fully immersed in the developer and agitated during the development.

It is also possible that the image was not developed for the full length of time, resulting in a 'snatched' print from the developer to the stop bath to prevent the image being overdeveloped.

To avoid this fault, reduce the exposure of the print from the enlarger and extend the developing time to compensate. It is vitally important to agitate the developing tray during the development. This is to ensure that fresh chemicals reach each part of the print. This is done quite simply by lifting and lowering one end of the tray and allowing the chemicals to move around the print. This should be repeated during development.

Two things to watch out for while doing this. Firstly, take care not to splash the chemicals over the workbench, some of them are corrosive. Secondly, make sure you keep the whole print under the chemicals all the time. The image here (above right) shows some sign of development on the left hand side but clearly was not refreshed with the developer by agitation. If you look closely you will see a series of vertical lines where the developing liquid did not cover parts of the print consistently.

In this enlarged part of the image (from the top right corner) you can see small marks on the print. These are from the negative and are caused by air bubbles being present while the film was in the developing tank.

When developing a negative at home it is necessary to agitate the developer to ensure that fresh chemicals reach all parts of the film. If we don't we get small bubbles of air sticking to the surface of the film which prevents the chemicals reaching the surface of the film. This causes the small marks as can be seen here.

To prevent this happening all we need do is tap the developing tank sharply against the workbench to dislodge the bubbles during development. We also agitate the developer either by spinning the film inside with the developing tank spindle or by inverting the tank. After each agitation the tank should be tapped against the workbench to dislodge any new air bubbles caused by agitation.

Lighting Quality

Leaving the processing faults aside, how we light the glamour subject is of vital importance to a successful image. Here only a single direct light was used as can be seen from the harsh shadows. While you can get away with a single light, most of the time it is best to diffuse the light so we can avoid the harsh shadow. This tends to give a more flattering result, more so with female subjects.

If only one light is available you could should either bounce the light off a wall or ceiling, or use a reflector to help bounce light onto the subject reduce the harshness.

Composition

Here the subject is both attractive and nicely posed and clearly relaxed although lying on a tile floor cannot be that comfortable. The right arm forms a nice frame for the face but the arm closest to the viewer is obscuring the face a bit too much. Perhaps the shadow caused by the right arm could be better hidden. These can both be rectified by placing the models head upon a small cushion as it will then raise the face by an inch or too showing more of the face and hiding the shadow on the tiles behind her.

A small amount of cropping on the left could also get rid of the bad processing faults which detract from the subject.

To sum up our analysis, the photographer is lucky to have a lovely model to work with but is sadly let down with the lighting and printing issues. Fortunately both can be remedied quite simply as shown above.

School of Photography.com Full Length Courses

If you want to learn more about all kinds of photography, take a look at our complete full length courses. All are tutor assisted with examples, full text and projects.

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