Shootin’ the blues

It all started when I took some pictures of people on a normal black and white film, that looked like they’d been shot on ortho.

Now, ortho film is not sensitive to red light, so it renders red dark and blue pale. If you use it for male portraits it increases skin texture and gives a more rugged look. The opposite would be to shoot with a red or orange filter, which removes freckles and blemishes on pale skin.

But what I got was a bit of ortho effect – skin texture and freckles were more noticeable. This was not what I’d been expecting.

Not sure how well it will show-up, but the subject’s freckles are more pronounced and his beard and hair are darker.

I’d been shooting a roll of Agent Shadow 400, so I contacted Stephen Dowling in his hollow volcano lair to ask if the mystery emulsion might be a bit blue-sensitive. He assured me that the top-secret research facility that produced his film said that it was panchromatic. Why would you want anything less for a secret mission? So the ortho effect was a puzzle.

I’d also shot a couple of ‘end of roll’ pictures on the film, one of which was some bunting against a brick wall. When I looked at this, there was no difference in tone between the red and blue parts of the bunting. So the film really was panchromatic.

Then the penny dropped – shadows under an open sky are blue. I had taken the portraits under a clear blue sky, but in the shade. My subjects were lit with blue light. So my panchromatic film faithfully recorded the tonal shift caused by the lighting. And yet I know full well that colour pictures look blue in the shade. I’ve not seen it before on mono film though, either because I wasn’t looking carefully or because I rarely go out in sunlight.