From: Carl Weese (cweese@earthlink.net)
Date: 12/16/02-05:27:07 AM Z
Joe,
The ads back then were shot on color transparency films: color neg films of
the day were way too coarse and grainy. For expensive ads, these chromes
were often printed in dye transfer and then heavily retouched by hand before
being separated for reproduction. On top of that, magazine inks will
certainly have faded in the forty-fifty intervening years. Just a few
thoughts on "the look".---Carl
--
web site with picture galleries
and workshop information at:
http://home.earthlink.net/~cweese/
----------
>From: Joe Tait <jtait@texas.net>
>To: alt-photo-process-l@sask.usask.ca
>Subject: Gum & 50's Color Ad Aesthetic
>Date: Mon, Dec 16, 2002, 12:15 AM
>
> I have an enduring love affair with the complete unreality of 50'/60's
> advertisements & I have a few ideas that I would like to bite off that look
for,
> but have little experience shooting color and was seeking some advice.
>
> Are today's color emulsions just too clean and refined to get anywhere close
to
> what was used forty plus years ago? Are there lens filters out there that
could
> help the situation? I have taken initial shots with some older lenses
> (Koni-Omega Rapid & LF barrel lenses), and they are certainly more suited in
> this situation to say my Nikon lenses, but I am definitely not getting a
> negative anywhere close to what I want. I am shooting this under tungsten
studio
> lighting with kodak supra.
>
> Gum seems the obvious choice for this. Should I not worry about the negative
as
> much and concentrate on gum's ability to be "painterly"? This will be my first
> serious shot at gum....any suggestions on a substrate (preferebly _not_ paper)
> that would retain a decent amount of detail and allow me to get bold color? I
> want a short scale, semi-blocked up shadows and high-contrast. These prints
are
> planned to be process prints, btw....
>
> Can you paint on top of gum with acrylic w/out an intermediate layer of
varnish?
> I would like to do just that in light washes with translucent liquitex medium
> viscosity paints, but with a varnish layer I worry about the interaction that
> makes glazing/washes so attractive.
>
> As a side note, what were the working process/techniques of the press/graphic
> designers of the time? I see a lot of ads that are just b/w shots with spot
> plates and are easy enough to duplicate, but most of my favorite ads appear to
> be process. Was it just the emulsions, or manipulation of the separate process
> plates? Maybe the instability of the inks? The color is just so off, but
> pleasing to the eye and expressive, makes me want to fear communism and buy a
> toaster....
>
> -Joe
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