In Portrait Photography, Size Matters!

Jun 19
09:08

2012

Dan Eitreim

Dan Eitreim

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Have you ever wondered how the 8 x 10 size came about? It affects the printing of your photography on a daily basis!

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In portrait photography,In Portrait Photography, Size Matters! Articles size matters! Today's photo tip is about the size of our photographs.

Have you ever wondered how the 8 x 10 size came about? I did and I did a little research. (Years ago.) If my sources were correct - and I think they were - here is how it happened.

Back in the day, before point and shoots, SLR's  and DSLR's we had large format, view cameras. Large format refers to the size of the negative.

Those are the ones you see in those old photos - taken back in the 1800's. You know; the one with a HUGE camera, mounted on a tripod that probably weighed in at over a hundred pounds.

The photographer would stick his head under a black hood so he could see well enough to focus the image. The image was upside down by the way. That is actually the point to an SLR - to flip over the image, so you see it right side up in the view finder.

Then, once he was focused, he would come out from under the hood and remove the lens cap - count off the seconds needed for the exposure - and then replace the lens cover.

If he needed more light, he would hold up a big tray covered in chemicals (I didn't research this, but I think it was gunpowder) and fire it off at some point during the exposure.

By the way, exposures were LONG! These long exposures created problems of their own! The subjects were usually not able to hold still that long, so for formal portraits, the photographer actually had them sitting in a chair with braces going up their backs! They couldn't move, even if they wanted to! Ever wonder why those old portraits looked so stiff?

Finally, the shot was done. The film was in a light proof slider that the photographer removed and took into the dark room for developing into a negative.

That negative was typically 8 x 10 inches in size and the light sensitive paper was sized to match. The photographer made what is called a contact print.

A contact print means that there was no enlarging or cropping. The print was made directly from the negative and was the same size as the negative. (BTW - for a long time, negatives were made of glass.)

And that is how the 8 x 10 size came about. Later, using the same size ratios they began to crop and enlarge and the 4 x 5 and the 16 x 20 were born.

As technology progressed, the size ratios of the negative changed, but the size of the light sensitive paper didn't. It is still based on the old 8 x 10!

So, be sure to leave a little extra room around your portrait photography - and other photos -  to allow for cropping. The modern cameras shoot in different height to width ratios and need to be cropped to fit the 8 x 10 ratio. If you don't allow for that, you could lose important aspects of you photograph.