Front View of Camera and Tripod.

Fig. 1. Front View of Camera and Tripod.

Showing tilting bed.

Fig. 2. Showing tilting bed.

Tilting bed reversed.

Fig. 3. Tilting bed reversed.

Tripod with camera attached.

Fig. 4. Tripod with camera attached.

In the making of portraits in the home, it is necessary, first of all. to forget many of the things that have been learned in the studio. The demand for home portraits has not been created by the desire to have pictures similar to those made in the studio: it is not a matter of convenience that makes home portraits, popular, so much as the desire to have pictures that are different - that are free from the evidence of stereotyped posing and lighting. It is the desire for more naturalness and less artificiality. If an accessory is introduced, it only tends to make the picture more natural, for it is a part of the home, and it is in this home that a woman or her children are always seen at their best.

So much for the cause of the growing popularity of Home-Portraiture; now for the methods of making these pictures. It must be remembered that the average portrait lens is of too long a focus for home portraits, while there is also the danger of using a lens of too short focus. We equip our outfit with lens of ten-inch focus, which is a compromise between a long and short focus lens.

This lens should not be stopped down, as a small opening will make the negative too wiry. The full aperture of f: 6.3 will give a soft negative with plenty of detail, and the exposures need not be more than a second or two if the matter of lighting is properly handled. Faster lenses may be used, but as a rule they are stopped down to approximately the above opening and are no faster than the lens we furnish.

If you have worked on the theory that the proper way to balance your lighting is to screen down the light until the highlight balances with the shadow, you have worked right for effects under the skylight in your studio, but you must forget this rule if you would make a success of home-portraiture. This rule will not apply here, for the volume of light is too small, and the time of exposure would be too great.

You must bring the shadow up to where it will balance with the highlight, and by so doing, retain all the strength of the small volume of light you are working with. Here again you must forget some of the things you have learned in the studio. You can not work with a reflector eight or ten feet from your subject; you must work up close and with a reflector which reflects practically all the light which falls on it. The reflector we furnish is so opaque that it reflects most of the light, rather than absorbing it, and is made small enough so that the light may be placed exactly where it is wanted.

It must be remembered that in making home portraits, the light most often used is that from a single window. The head-cloth we furnish is long enough to be used as a screen for the lower half of the window and may be quickly placed in position with a thumb tack at the outer edge of the window casing. This will allow the light to fall at the proper angle for a bust portrait, if the subject is properly placed. If you will note the diagram we have made and follow the suggestions we offer, these methods having been used by some of the most successful home-portrait workers, you will find the results obtained are excellent, though the method may seem a radical departure from some of your fixed studio ideas.

Place the subject on a line with the side of the window which is the greatest distance from the camera, and as far from the light as the width of the window. This gives you the light at the proper angle, but in such concentrated form that the contrasts are very strong. The balancing of contrasts is secured by the proper use of the reflecting screen, which should be parallel with a line drawn from the ear to the nose of the subject (see diagram), and at a distance of about thirty inches. These rules must, of course, be varied to suit the conditions, but will be found applicable to most conditions.

Bust portraits or three-quarter figures are most natural for home portraits, because the eye does not cover the entire figure, as we are accustomed to seeing our friends at close range in the home. Of course this rule does not apply to children and need not apply to adults, but is offered merely as a suggestion.

The fact that the Eastman Home Portrait camera is also adapted to exterior work must not be lost sight of, and that the outfit is furnished as a whole at the price given below.

Eastman Home Portrait Outfit, complete, including5x7 Home Portrait camera, camera carrying case, extra front board and nine plate holders, Eastman Zeiss An-astigmat lens, No. 6, Home Portrait shutter, lens hood, Home Portrait tripod, Home Portrait background and background carrier, Home Portrait reflector and 40x48 inch head-cloth, carrying case for tripod, background, background carrier and reflector.

$140.00.

From An Artura Iris Print By C. L. Lewis Toledo, Ohio.

From An Artura Iris Print By C. L. Lewis Toledo, Ohio.

From An Artura Iris Print By C. L. Lewis Toledo, Ohio.

From An Artura Iris Print By C. L. Lewis Toledo, Ohio.

Eastman Home Portrait Outfit And Home Portraiture StudioLightMagazine1912 83Complete Outfit, including everything; necessary for the making of home portraits, except plates, packed in two neat cases ready for business.

Complete Outfit, including everything; necessary for the making of home portraits, except plates, packed in two neat cases ready for business.