From: Sandy King (sanking@hubcap.clemson.edu)
Date: 09/19/00-12:07:52 PM Z
I saw the following post on one of the newsgroups. It appeared on
first reading to really belong in our discussions on alternative
photography re: the nude. If not perhaps someone might suggest where
it would be better received.
Although the original post deals with achieving separation of skin
tones when photographing elephants (naked I presume) it occurred to
me that some of you might find its technical instructions useful when
photographing nudes in outdoor locations in and around white oak
groves where separation of tones might be a problem. I presume the
epidermal reflectance values given by the author would be a good
starting point for Caucasian women. Perhaps someone could jump in and
suggest some corresponding values for women of color?
Sandy King
Bert,
Boy am I glad you jumped in here. I'd forgotten about you being able
to use a densitometer to correct for the color shifts as accurately as
possible. My problem lies in the southern elephants { zoous
habitatitus } and the hope of using tri color printing to enhance the
epidermal reflectance enough to get good separation from the native
Quercas Alba grove they inhabit. I normally read somewhere near R-121,
B-115, G-130 on the Quercas and the same relative numbers {only 20 G
points lower} on the austral facing pachyderms when photographing from
a nearby hill as the midday sun glares in my face. This being a sedate
time for them allows the use of Large Format camera with a polarizer [
not enough light usually when they enter the grove.}. Most epidermal
readings as I mentioned are in the R-119, B-118, and G-119 range and
I'm thinking of doing a slight burn of the area with only a .30 G
filter trying to move the separation of the two similar tones. I tried
the opposite with subtractive printing but as usual the color cross
over in subtractive printing was too great to give good separation.
Might this work in additive printing or would an overall increase of
one stop more exposure followed by a .30 decrease in printing exposure
work better. I sure don't want any white elephants!
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