Instead Of Photographing Hollywood Celebrities With A DSLR, This Photographer Used A Vintage Camera
Shooting with old-timey cameras is all fine and dandy, but Victoria Will really merged the old with the new in her Sundance 2015 celebrity tintypes! Sundance Film Festival is the American indie cinema event, and tintype is an extremely old method of photography. It was used in the second half of the 19th century, required nasty chemicals to work, and each photo had to be developed in 8 minutes or less. Using help from an alternative photography non-profit Penumbra Foundation to develop the pictures, Victoria made 175 tintype plates (actually made of aluminum).
Victoria first attempt to do Sundance celebrity tintypes was back in 2014. She came back having learned from her experience, and more ready than ever. For one, tintypes require a very long exposure time – that’s why old timey people are somewhat stiff and non-smiling in portraits. To get around it, Victoria used extremely powerful modern flash heads that put out enough light to do the pictures almost immediately. Might have momentarily blinded a few celebrities, too.
Commenting on her work, Victoria said “What I love about the process is how raw it is,” says Victoria. “We live in an age of glossy magazines and overly retouched skin. But there is no lying with tintypes. You can’t get rid of a few wrinkles in Photoshop.”
Here, we have selected some that we consider to be the best of the shoot.
More info: victoriawill.com (h/t: petapixel)
Bob Odenkirk, Breaking Bad
Kevin Bacon, X-Men: First Class
Leslie Bibb, Iron man
Jason Segel, How I met Your Mother
Lisa Kudrow, Friends
Jason Momoa, Game of Thrones, Conan: The Barbarian
Ewan McGregor, Star Wars
Jason Schwartzman, Grand Budapest Hotel
Zachary Quinto, Star Trek
Kristen Wiig, Bridesmaids
Patrick Wilson, The Conjuring
Vincent Cassel, Black Swan
James Franco, The Interview
James Marsden, X-Men
Spike Lee, Director, Malcolm X, 25th Hour
Chloe Rose, Degrassi
Jack Black, Nacho Libre
Slash, Guns’n’Roses
Hugo Weaving, Matrix, Lord of the Rings
Lena Dunham, Girls
Got wisdom to pour?
crazy
Jason Segel looks really creepy
OMG I can’t stand Lena Dunham, don’t care where or how I see her.
I tried a Graflex, a much easier camera, and got lousy results. Few people recognize how really, really hard it is to get any sort of image with the old wet plates.
I get so amused at how banal people can be. Instead of appreciating the process and feel of wonderfully done photographs, they tritely bemoan the captions (?!). Such pettiness. Victoria Will showed amazing heart in these photographs. The few ingrates need to get over themselves.
Everything’s amazing and nobody’s happy. :-)
I get so amused at people who use words like banal, tritely, pettiness, and ingrates. How haughty.
Why did you remove my comment?
Plenty of talented photographers have been doing this. Don’t glorify someone for being around a lot of movie stars at one time and trying it out for the headline.
amen to that. Sally Mann’s photography is similar and many others like Michael Schindler.
That would be nice to see, but Sally Mann’s site is so busted that I can’t compare. Too bad, because I would rather see real people rather than Hollywood.
Please, go outside and take photos pf real people since you’re operating under the assumption that these folks are somehow not real.
Why not just say, “actor”, “director” etc.? From this article you’d surmise that all those people have only done one or two things in their lives…
I agree. The fact that they put “Nacho Libre” next to Jack Black is pretty terrible. If that was the one thing I was known for as an actor I would be pretty depressed.
You’re an actor? Any movies/TV shows we might know of?
Show me where I said i was an actor and ill give you a Cooke
Sam Cooke?
It’s their most recent work I believe, thats why its near their name. Just as when your working at a current job, you’re not going to have the title from your previous job after your name, so thats why, its common place.
It might seem like that, but after a bit of thinking and an IMDB search, most everybody on this list is involved in more current projects, or has been involved in more interesting projects since the project listed. Not in every case, but definitely in the case of Jack Black, Jason Segel, Ewan McGregor and lots of the others I’m sure. Most of these people are working actors, which means.. you know.. working.
I’m pretty sure it’s just what they are best known for, not that I agree with some, but not that they’ve only done this one thing.
Jason Momoa known for GoT and the Conan remake?
Screw that, Stargate Atlantis!
I’m glad Victoria has taken it upon herself to bring this now ancient process into present times. This is not easy to do and she has created some astounding photographs…
I believe that alot of the 1800’s photo’s with old timey people were actually dead, it was real common then to have a photo with the dead. If the/one person looked really clear, they were dead. The alive people were a little blury as couldn’t keep still for the time of the photo.
Yes. People in the 1800s hadn’t invented how to sit still yet.
Oh, no. They knew how to sit still, it’s just that the exposure took so long that they’d do small, minuet movements which would make the picture blurry, while the deceased were able to sit absolutely still.
A lot of them did have a recently deceased relative in the picture. It was primarily, from my understanding, an economic restriction though. Pictures were expensive, and most people wouldn’t just have one taken every few years.
the amount of time it took to get a photo captured was longer than people could be incredibly still for.
instead of shooting at 1/100 sec, they were probably shooting at a full second or more. the only people who wouldn’t be blurry from slight movement (like breathing!) are dead people.
What are you, 12? You must think the 19th century happened during the Pleistocene. Almost all of those people were very much alive.
Taking pictures with the dead was very common back then. The more you know!
no, the original commenter is right. the amount of time it took to get a photo captured was longer than people could be incredibly still for.
instead of shooting at 1/100 sec, they were probably shooting at a full second or more. the only people who wouldn’t be blurry from slight movement (like breathing!) are dead people.