It may be that you have never thought about it: “How is it possible that the faces of the Hollywood actors and actresses of yesteryear are perfect? ”But now that you’ve read that phrase, you’ve probably fallen: did they all have skin this smooth, matte, with closed pores and without wrinkles, pimples or marks? But what beauty products did they use? , we’ll see?
Well, the truth is that we can’t talk to Audrey Hepburn to tell us what she had in her toiletry bag – which would surely help her to have such beautiful skin – but we have seen that, in the era of Hollywood of the 30 there was already a kind of ‘Photoshop‘, a technique with which photographers and photo editors in post-production achieved a’ glow ‘effect, just like Sara Montiel’s average.
‘Psss’: perhaps they did not have the technology that we have now, but it could also be that it was precisely that which led professionals to be more ingenious. Check out this photo of Oscar winner Joan Crawford (by George Hurrell, 1931), before and after the ‘touch-up’.
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It is said that retoucher James Sharp spent six hours using a kind of machine that vibrated the negative, and the result was that smoothness on the skin. But how exactly did that machine work? What was the technique about? An expert tells us in detail.
YOU ARE GOING TO FLIP WITH THE ‘PHOTOSHOP’ OF THE 30’S IN HOLLYWOOD
Sara Ivars is known for being a great digital retoucher (here you can see his works with Lola Indigo, different fashion brands or in recognized media), and on old techniques, he says: “before Photoshop, the photos were already retouched manually. Since the 19th century, photographers and retouchers would scrape their film with knives, draw or paint on top of it, and even glue multiple negatives to create a single print before developing the photo. An example of this is the famous portrait of Abraham Lincoln in 1860. It is a ‘collage’, his head appears attached to the body of the politician John C. Calhoun “:
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Iconic Photos/ D.R.
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In the case of the retouch which was used to edit the photo by Joan Crawford, consisted of the following: “the negative was placed on a green cloth in the center of the device and the image was illuminated against the light by means of a fluorescent tube of the machine. The device made the negative vibrate slightly while the retoucher I was working on it with a tint brush or touch-up pencil. The small movements helped to soften the lines, allowing modifications in the negative. And with the help of a magnifying glass, skin imperfections were smoothed out, “explains Sara.
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When asked if he considers that these tweaks of the 30s are the germ of the aesthetic canon, he opines: “Of course, I think it caused it, because at the time these techniques generated controversy: many photographers they criticized the retouch because, according to some, it eliminated ‘irregularities’ that give a person their own character. But for many others, it was completely necessary and what’s more, in the portrait photography, the clients themselves asked for these changes “.
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Keystone-FranceGetty Images
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THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE RETOUCHING OF THE 1930s AND NOW
“Refering to technique, I think it is not too different (only that today we enjoy the advancement of technology). The neater way to edit the texture is by using highlights and shadows. So that we understand each other: to change volumes, you add light where there is too much shadow and vice versa, as they did with negatives but, if you are not very precise, this is generated ‘smooth’ effect we are talking about. To this day, this attracts exaggerated attention and I think it has already gone out of style, although it continues to be seen! Anyway, in terms of professional fashion photography, the difference with today I think is the amount of pixel retouching that is used by photoIn other words, years ago even the smallest pore of the skin was retouched, until almost metallic or porcelain textures were generated, and now … much less! “, he concludes.
If you are interested in this world of old ‘hollywood’ photograph, here you have the book of the famous photographer George Hurrell, who was the creator of the ‘glam’ portrait of Hollywood and who captured the stars of the most remembered era of cinema. One last!
