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Archive 2014 · The Bill Brandt look: any suggestions?

  
 
J.D.
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p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · The Bill Brandt look: any suggestions?


Hi all, I'm wondering if anyone has a method (Photoshop or Lightroom) for producing black and white the way Bill Brandt used to do it?

He apparently had very specific paper type he used and his prints had great tonality, albeit with blacks which had almost no detail. If you look at some of his pictures of the industrial north of Britain, particularly the famous picture of Halifax, you will see what I mean. It's almost like the old lith film. His skin tones, on the other hand, were usually very rich but occasionally he blew them out for effect.

Brandt's work has always fascinated me. His processing technique was very different from say Ansel Adams, being far less even handed and more dramatic. I'm guessing this was to do with the fact that Adams was primarily - though not exclusively - a landscape photographer, while Brandt spent more time photographing people.

http://www.beetlesandhuxley.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/stock-image-large/stock-images/HALIFAX-1937-1-C28135.jpg

http://cache0.bigcartel.com/product_images/2582618/13-Gull_s_Nest__Isle_of_Skye_1947.jpg

Has anyone here tried this or make any suggestions about where to start? I realise that most of what he did was specific to each photograph but there are common traits too.

I should add that I have Perfect Effects 8 as well but I get a bit lost with that...

Any help gratefully received.



Jul 31, 2014 at 05:30 AM
Steve Bingham
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p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · The Bill Brandt look: any suggestions?


1- He might have pushed his film for that high contrast look
2- He might have used a #4 paper for his printing

In any case, this look can be easily done in PS with curves.



Aug 01, 2014 at 06:15 PM
J.D.
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p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · The Bill Brandt look: any suggestions?


He probably did push his film. I have always assumed that.

He certainly used #4 paper. You are quite right about that.

I tried with curves but found the whole exercise very frustrating. I have a feeling doing it in colour, using the various colour sliders is part of the answer. That's before converting to B&W. Yes, you can move the black point to cut off any deeper black detail and you can play around with the whites until you get that muted look but I just couldn't nail it. On thinking about it I suspect he used red, orange and yellow filters too.

I suspect he did a lot of dodging and burning too.

In any case, thank you for your response.



Aug 02, 2014 at 07:02 AM
Mescalamba
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p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · The Bill Brandt look: any suggestions?


Some of it is surely selective tweaking by dodging and burning.

And it does look like pushed film.



Aug 02, 2014 at 08:57 AM
Keith B.
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p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · The Bill Brandt look: any suggestions?


Just for fun, tweak the shape of the tone curve in LR into an "S"-shaped curve.
Create several different s-curves of varying extremity.
See what happens.
I'm not a fan of the blocked-up shadows style, but if anyone made it work, it was Brandt.



Aug 03, 2014 at 02:42 AM
J.D.
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p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · The Bill Brandt look: any suggestions?


Thanks Keith. I actually tried dragging the black point across to the right to all but eliminate shadow detail but there's something missing. I'll give the S curves another shot.

Thanks.

Mescalamba; you are correct about dodging and burning.



Aug 03, 2014 at 03:42 AM
Mescalamba
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p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · The Bill Brandt look: any suggestions?


Keith B. wrote:
Just for fun, tweak the shape of the tone curve in LR into an "S"-shaped curve.
Create several different s-curves of varying extremity.
See what happens.
I'm not a fan of the blocked-up shadows style, but if anyone made it work, it was Brandt.


Its not blocked-up shadows, he selectively darkened certain portions of image, to achieve that viewers eyes go to "important stuff" first. Not that hard to mimic, but it requires very well composed image with exactly this technique in mind.



Aug 03, 2014 at 05:35 AM
J.D.
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p.1 #8 · p.1 #8 · The Bill Brandt look: any suggestions?


Certainly true that you have to shoot for the edit. Brandt alluded to this on the rare occasions he spoke about his photographs.

Point taken about the blocking vs burning.



Aug 03, 2014 at 06:47 AM





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