Feedback on this "Cuban Man" portriat

laurenvictoria · Aug 12, 2013

I'm playing around with making digital look like film. Let me know what you think!

Elderly Cuban Man by Lauren Cabanas, on Flickr

tevo · Aug 12, 2013

The blue door to the right is massively distracting to me. Perhaps shooting this in portrait orientation would simplify the background.

terri · Aug 12, 2013

Agree with the comment about the blue door. Really pulls the eye away from the subject. Also, you might want to move away from the window - the glare on his glasses make it too difficult to see his eyes, and the eyes in portraiture are what *make* the shot. The viewer must be able to connect with the subject.

laurenvictoria · Aug 12, 2013

I agree with the door! I actually was outside behind the house so there was no window! His glasses were very thick and foggy haha! They don't have the best glasses over there haha

Derrel · Aug 12, 2013

I'm not sold on this as a film emulation. Why? It needs a visible grain structure when seen larger. I went to Flickr and looked at it large, and there's no grain structure,ergo, it looks 100% digital. Also, I notice a lot of film simulations have a very strong, overall yellowish cast; that's not convincing to me, but then I shot film for 25 years, so I know what film actually looks like. TO emulate 35mm film, which this does by way of aspect ratio and depth of field, it's gotta have a visible grain structure when seen larger. I have read that in Cuba, there is a lot of that brightly painted stuff, like the blue door, so that to me made at least some sense. The glare on the large, uncoated plastic framed glasses sort of speaks to a developing world state of affairs; multicoated eyeglasses are the norm in the USA today, as are metal frames, not those big, round owl-eye frames that look easily 20 years out of date. And the guy's ears...whoa. It looks like a shot that's infused with a lot of memories and personal connection for you.

laurenvictoria · Aug 12, 2013

Oh boy always such a war with this whole digital to film thing. I agree definitely didn't expect it to look exactly like film. I've been shooting a lot of film lately and my mom always has so I'm familiar with how it looks. There's no way digital could match it perfectly. Must be heartbreaking for photographers like you who have used it for so long to see it sort of dying out. Besides that though, playing around with colors and such trying to make It look like film is loads of fun. I'm bored of seeing dslr photos where the blacks are perfectly black and whites are perfectly white. It's fun to play around and have fun with editing.
I'd love to hear what you have to say about this video shot on a 5D but made to look like film. I was freaking out when I saw it lol https://vimeo.com/m/70481100 hate how quickly it's cut though.

But those glasses though are definitely something haha

Derrel · Aug 12, 2013

laurenvictoria said:
Oh boy always such a war with this whole digital to film thing. I agree definitely didn't expect it to look exactly like film. I've been shooting a lot of film lately and my mom always has so I'm familiar with how it looks. There's no way digital could match it perfectly. Must be heartbreaking for photographers like you who have used it for so long to see it sort of dying out. Besides that though, playing around with colors and such trying to make It look like film is loads of fun. I'm bored of seeing dslr photos where the blacks are perfectly black and whites are perfectly white. It's fun to play around and have fun with editing.
I'd love to hear what you have to say about this video shot on a 5D but made to look like film. I was freaking out when I saw it lol https://vimeo.com/m/70481100 hate how quickly it's cut though.

But those glasses though are definitely something haha

No war. You never even made it out of basic training.

Add some grain. Otherwise it screams out "DIGITAL!"

No matter how awful you make it look.