Vintage Train Station Portrait: Impossible Whites (CC)

[Farmclicker]

I feel like this is a Tide Laundry Detergent commercial where the whites are impossible to get right without copious amounts of bleach!

The Attempt: I tried to do a photo shoot of my wife and I dressed in 1940 clothing to capture a series of pictures along our local railroad tracks. The timing was poor because as parents we only get one weekend without kids every 6 weeks and on this weekend, it was EXTREMELY foggy. :-(

The Set Up: A point and shoot camera, set up on a tri-pod using the self-timer to try and get the station name, my wife and I, and the bike into one photo.

The Issue: I am not happy with the whites. My shirt is new and is stark white, while my wife's vintage shirt has yellowed some, and when I try to post-edit to get the glare off my shirt, I lose the details in her shirt's collar, and I make the white paint of the station look dingy. I have adjusted back and forth but I just cannot get all the white colors to really mesh well together.

The Question: Is there any hope for this photo? I really like the composition of it; the station name sign, the bench, the vintage clothes and the overall feel conveys what I was after; a photo that looks straight out of the 1940's, but I am thinking the only thing that will save it is going to black and white?

[/URL] Hello by Plowpoints[/IMG]

 

[Rick58]

Maybe someone else can help with the processing, but I like the shot. It's looks like Norman Rockwell finally decided to pick up a camera.

 

[Derrel]

I think it looks perfectly FINE the way it is!

 

[2WheelPhoto]

NICE! I'd play with some black and white versions too

 

[jake337]

Not sure what you have to edit with. You could make a duplicate layer, adjust until they match then add a layer mask and paint his shirt the matching color.

 

[MWC2]

I like the photo.

What about simply making the changes you want for your shirt and masking back where you don't want the changes to affect. That way you would keep the detail in your wife's shirt.

 

[tirediron]

I really don't see the shirts as an issue. They look fine to me; this is a really nice image!

 

[Farmclicker]

Wow...thanks guys and gals, it is one thing to impress the fans, it is yet another to impress the players.

My wife and I worked a lot on this photo shoot to get some details right. For instance her shoes, we could not find a pair of heels that had the little straps across the top of her foot that either (1) looked good for the period we were trying to replicate, or (2) was comfortable to her. So we use the shoes she typically wears to church, then I took a pair of welding gloves I had, cut the cuffs off them in a narrow band, and painted them black to match her heels. Then to replicate a silver snap, I pounded an aluminum shingle nail through the strip of leather and epoxied it on, then cut the pointed end off it. To attach the strap to the pumps without damage, we used self adhesive velcro on both sides to give the heels that 1940's look. In the photo, you can just see that I used a flat black paint while her patent leather pumps are a touch more shiny then the straps...but it is almost unnoticeable in the picture.

In order to do her hair in the 1940's style, along with make up, jewelry and period dress, we got up at 3 AM so the light would be just right when we were in complete attire at 5:30 AM. We were so bummed when we realized the fog was not going to lift until well after our photo shoot would be over. We had a limited window because church starts at 9:30 and this was done last Sunday Morning (08-12-2012).

I appreciate all of your kind words and never thought about retouching my shirt in the photo. I use Paint Shop Pro for post-editing so that is easily done with that program.

 

[Farmclicker]

I am not sure if this is allowed or not, but since there was interest in the first photo, I was hoping it was alright to post another photo of the same photo shoot to convey the over-all 1940's theme of that mornings events. If it is not allowed, feel free to delete this reply to my own thread.

Anyway, to capture this one, I used a technique I have never used before, again using a point and shoot camera set up on a tripod and getting the photo via the self-timer feature of the camera. The unusual part was setting the camera up for macro, then setting the camera at a low, upward angle to capture me starting a railroad spike into a sleeper of a frog as my wife looks on with mock disgust.

The intent of the macro setting was to get a crisp look at me, while getting a more blurry look to my wife in the distance. I'll be honest, I like the photo but always welcome constructive criticism on whether or not I pulled that aspect of it off or not, and if there are other changes people would have made to make it better. Maybe there was a better way to get the same sort of imagine (assuming people like the photo) or maybe there was a way to improve the temperature or white balance.

[/URL] Just Ignore Me Then by Plowpoints[/IMG]

 

[tirediron]

The second one is nice as well (there's nothing wrong with posting additional images in your own thread BTW), but I wish it was a little wider; you're sort of "cropped" at the back. A couple of VERY minor niggles after I've looked and re-looked at these. In the first, I think it might have been better without the umbrella; since your clothes don't say "rain", the wood doesn't appear wet, and there's a bicycle in the scene, the 'brolly doesn't really fit IMO. In #2, your clothes are very period, but very definitely NOT those of a Gandy Dancer.

If you're doing this well with a P&S I would love to see what you could do with a FF DSLR, a few lenses and some good lighting. Whatever you do, DO NOT STOP doing this!

 

[Ysarex89 83]

First, I agree with Rick, Derrel and Tirediron -- very nice photo and OK to leave it as is especially given your original goal.

The photo has no black in it -- a faded 1940s photo would likely have no black in it, so leave it alone. Your white shirt and the photo overall has a slight red shift. If you sample items that should be neutral like the umbrella, the bike tire, her shoes, your pants, etc. they all sample red. Again that's appropriate and just fine given what you wanted to do, so leave it alone.

For reference if you want to think about it; here's those two items corrected. I set a black point and took ever so slight an amount of red out.

Joe

 

[Farmclicker]

Ysarex, I agree and like your version of the photo. White the whites bothered me, it seemed as if the skin tones on both pictures had a bit too much of red to them. I thought maybe it was because I am deeply tanned, as a farmer I get plenty of sun this time of year from spending plenty of time in the fields, but with less red I in the photo I can see that a little sun burn was not the case.

The umbrella has an interesting back story to it, but I...in no way...want to appear to be defending my use of it in a non-raining photo. You are indeed right, it should not have been in the photo. It was authentic however. I got it out of my late Grandmother's house and it looks to be made from the early 1900's based on its metal splines. The fabric was in good shape, but the interesting part was, inscribed on the handle and written in ink on the cloth, was the original owners name, and the town she lived in...Brooks. Since we do not live in this town, I thought it was kind of fitting that the antique umbrella returned there if only in a photo.

As for the Gandy Dancer, I agree, we should have spent as much time on my clothing as we did my wife's. We shopped for some overalls, but could not find any before the photo shoot and their absence shows unfortunately. Like the umbrella, there is a back story to the gandy dancer aspect of the photo as well. For 7 years I worked for the maintenance of way department for a major railroad in the western part of the U.S before going into the mechanical department for a railroad in Maine. After 10 years though I gave it up and returned to the farm. I miss railroading some days, but deep down I am just a farmer. I guess that is good, even railroaders have to eat.

Thanks again for taking the time to edit my photo, I am humbled by your skill.

 

[Farmclicker]

I realize these are getting worse as I continue, but I thought I would show this one since it really conveys the amount of fog we had during the photo shoot. I think it works to our advantage here, only because it gives an authentic dreariness to a poor woman heading out of town on the early morning train.

This station is interesting because they do a lot of movies here because it is authentic and void of any appreciable amount of modernization since after 1930. It is also one of the few railroads of this vintage look that terminates on the sea coast. The interior of the train station is beautiful if you are a historic train buff, and if I had the skills and equipment would have attempted some photos inside with my wife next to a cast iron, pot bellied stove that is quite ornate and sits adjacent to an authentic and vintage ticket counter. I do not have the skills yet (or camera equipment) to do interior shots well enough though).

[/URL] At the Ticket Window by Plowpoints[/IMG]

 

[TenaciousTins]

I love the picture just as it is! And your wife reminds me a little of Rachel McAdams (from The Notebook and also The Vow and many other movies).

 

[Farmclicker]

Hey thanks. I told her what you said and she appreciated it. I am not sure she totally agrees, but then again one thing about her is that she has a terrible self-esteem.

It is so hard to fix that. She once told me that she was "not photogenic" and even hesitated at doing this photo shoot. Myself I think that is travesty...not because she should quit her job as a farm wife today and try out for the Dallas Cheerleading squad, but because beauty is more than that.

I have 4 daughters, ages 2, 5,6 and 7 and today as never before they are being bombarded by media on why the stereotype is regarding beauty. I am here to tell you I have 4 beautiful girls and a beautiful wife as well. The world will knock them down for sure and disagree with me on this finer point or that, but my job as a husband and father is to build them up and make them feel beautiful. When they feel that way, true beauty just radiates within.

BTW: We got married pretty close to where you live, North Haverill NH.