PORTRAITURE IN AN ORDINARY ROOM.
First, as to the extra apparatus which is required. Cameras and camera - stands are made specially for studio work, and these will be found much more con venient for indoor work than the cameras prepared for field work. It is not, however, by any means necessary that the amateur should provide himself with such. He may use his landscape camera and will produce quite as good results with it as with any other. The only differ ence is that he will require to work a little harder and to suffer some inconvenience in finding places for the legs of his tripod and so forth.
We illustrate here a camera and stand specially de signed for studio work. It will be seen that the camera differs from the ordinary one, chiefly in being more massive and not folding up into so small a space, porta bility being no object. The same may be said of the stand. There are also in the latter motions for raising the camera and for tipping it forwards.
The next question has regard to a lens. The portrait lens, which is an expensive article, is not nowadays an absolute necessity for portraiture indoors, as it was in wet-plate clays. If a room can be used which has a large window facing the sky, and more especially if the place be either in the country or in a small town where the atmosphere is clear, the light may be so good that a landscape lens of the "rapid" type may be used, and the exposures will not be excessive. If, however, the operator desires to excel, or the conditions of lighting be imperfect, a portrait lens will be found a desideratum.
A head - rest is another instrument which may be dispensed with in the case of good sitters, but which will be found a very great convenience when unsteady sitters are taken, or if the light be poor. It will be found almost a necessity if lenses of the landscape class be used. The object of the bead-rest is, as is implied in the name, to give rest to the head. There is also in most cases provision made for rest for the body.
We here illustrate head-rests of the ordinary type.
The frame is made of cast-iron so as to be heavy and give a sufficient support. There is an adjustable piece for the waist and another for the head.
The head-rest is an instrument against which many have a prejudice, but this is merely because it is at times used without discretion. We often hear people who have been photographed talking of having had their heads "clamped up in a machine." There is no excuse for doing this, as it is quite unnecessary. When the rest is used, the sitter should be first posed without any regard to it and then gently supported by the instrument at the head and waist. If the exposure be of short duration, the shoulders may be supported instead of the head.
In regard to lighting, the difficulty will be found to be the exact opposite to that which is experienced in the case of work out-of-doors. Indoors the difficulty is to get enough shadow to give relief and roundness. To do so, we must be very careful in selecting the position for our sitter and for the camera.
The best form of room to use, when it can be had, is one which has considerable length and which is lighted on one side by one or more windows. The broader these windows are the better. A bow window is the best of all, not so much on account of its particular form (although that too is sometimes useful) as because it offers so great an extent of lighting surface. We have mentioned several windows, because a long room gener ally is lighted by several, but it will be understood that only one is effective in throwing light on the sitter. Indeed, many prefer to darken all the windows except one. If there be any window behind or nearly behind the sitter, that at any rate should be darkened.
Here we have two sketch plans of rooms such as the photographer is likely to have at his command. The first is the most usual shape, and therefore we will consider it before the other.