Chapter V: Home Portraiture by Daylight

The making of portraits at home, by daylight or flashlight, brings the amateur to the most interesting of photographic fields. It is a field as difficult as it is fascinating, which accounts, in part, for the heavy percentage of failures we see in amateur work of this class. If we will abandon, in the beginning, all desire or attempts to make portraits like those made in professional studios, we will find that very satisfactory results may be secured at home, even with a hand camera. The only real difficulties are the lighting of the subject and the exposure, and in these our previous indoor work will help us very much.

Let us take up daylight work first. We need a room with a window facing north, and having an open, unobstructed view, _i.e._, not shaded by trees or nearby buildings. The higher the window the better. Sometimes a hall or other room which has a window placed high in the wall will be peculiarly advantageous. If we cannot have either of these, a window facing south, screened by a sheet of white muslin, will give us good results. As the light changes constantly from a south window the lighting here will, of course, be more difficult. Having chosen a suitable window we make two or three actinometer tests at three, five, and six feet from the light source, calculating for the use of the largest stop our lens will allow, to find the most suitable place for the subject. Where it is possible, about five feet from the window, and slightly behind it should be chosen. This will give us a fairly soft round lighting with desirable shadows. If the light is poor we must work nearer to the window, but this will make it difficult to avoid harsh lighting. An experiment shows that the light is much too strong on the lower part of the figure. This is caused by the fact that our window is too low. We cannot increase its height, but we can cut away the light by blocking out half or one-third of the lower part of the window with a shawl or piece of dark drapery. The light should now fall upon the head and shoulders of the subject. If the shadow side of the face, regardless of the direction of the head, is too dark, a white sheet or other reflector brought to within three or four feet of the subject will throw a little light where needed. By careful manipulation of the reflector, we secure the desired illumination of the shadows, but if we overdo this, the result will be flatness. A little observation will tell us when the reflector may be dispensed with, when desirable, and how it should be placed. Roundness and modelling are the two points to be chiefly considered. When a willing model is at hand a few hours spent at odd times in the study of lighting the face and figure will be of great assistance.

It is important that the subject shall be lighted from one source only, so that if the room has two windows, one must be darkened. If the light given by a single window necessitates too long an exposure, say more than twelve seconds, we must bring the subject as near to the light source as we can, and by the use of a fairly light background and side-screen, make a small studio around the window, so as to secure all possible illumination. This will generally be necessary when we attempt the portraiture of children indoors, or have to work with a hand camera lens whose largest stop is _f_/16 or _f_/20. With a rapid plate, and a lens working at _f_/5.6 or _f_/8, we can afford to get farther away from the light source. With a north light, and a bright day, the exposure at noon will rarely exceed five or six seconds. When the subject is dressed in dark clothes, or the room has dark furnishings, of course, the exposure will have to be lengthened. The lighting and disposition of the figure in portraiture are subjects much too difficult to be referred to in a paragraph. If, in the first we try to secure roundness and modelling, with a pleasing expression; and in the second, an easy, natural position, we will have made a good beginning. From this beginning by constant observation of lighting and posing as seen in everyday life, and a knowledge of pictorial composition we will very quickly grasp the essentials of these two details of portrait work.

As far as the background is concerned a curtain, rug, or screen will often prove altogether satisfactory, but for convenience in working a set of small backgrounds on a roller, which may be suspended on the wall in a moment, will be a profitable investment. Several makers make a special line of backgrounds for amateur portraiture at home. A few yards of gray felt, sufficient to form a floor-cloth as well as a background, will be found useful. This comes in six feet widths and may be had at the dry-goods stores. The “wide width” cloths used for blinds may also be mentioned as offering excellent material for backgrounds. Those without a “finished” or glazed surface should be chosen, and the shades of gray will be most useful for general purposes. The influence of the background upon the portrait is a detail which deserves careful study, the characteristics of the portrait being altogether different when light and dark grounds are used. For this reason, when we have only one background, it should be one graduated from light to dark, so that we can reverse it and soften or emphasize the general effect in the picture as may seem desirable. The smallness of the image within the picture space is a practical difficulty encountered in at-home portraiture with the hand camera. This can be overcome by the use of a supplementary lens, placed in front of the lens attached to the camera, by means of which a larger image is obtained. The _Ideal Portrait_ lens and the _Kodak Portrait Attachment_ may be mentioned as desirable aids for this purpose.