What makes those West Wing photos so special?

October 23, 2008 2:39 PM

The opening credits of the very fine show "The West Wing" include black and white still photos of cast members. There's something about them that makes you just go ... oooh! but I can't work out what it is. Does anyone out there know? Is it the contrast? The depth of field? The (over?) exposure? Have they been edited in some way to give them that quality? ... and bonus question - how could I do the same to my photos?...
posted by monster max to grab bag (12 comments total)

Is it just the photograph, or is it the way they slowly zoom and pan over them, aka the Ken Burns Effect?
posted by spikeleemajortomdickandharryconnickjrmints at 3:06 PM on October 23, 2008

They look relatively straight-forward to me. Kinda high contrast, maybe, or what I would think of as "correct" contrast. Nice, dark blacks, and nice bright whites. (Keep in mind I'm just basing this on the YouTube video.)

In my experience, most amateur photographers black and whites suffer from lack of proper contrast, giving them a gray, washed-out look. Perhaps this is what you are comparing them to.

Perhaps you could link to examples of your own photos that you are not happy with and the fine folks here can offer some insight into your own shots.
posted by Fuzzy Skinner at 3:08 PM on October 23, 2008

OK, I found some screencaps:
One Two Three Four

From those photos, it looks like:
-High contrast, resulting in the highlights being blown out. Notice the lack of detail in the white areas.
-Some, but not all, appear to have a soft-focus or selective-focus filter effect applied. Notice that the stars in the flag are sharply focused here, but other areas are blurry. In fact, the subject is less sharp than objects in front of and behind him. This photo looks pretty straight forward, except for blown out highlights. Of course, the images are all changing and moving during the sequence, so I don't think there is one "right" image.

What may be most appealing to you is the overall dream-like quality of the images. You might be interested in a Lensbaby to achieve a similar effect, if you have an SLR.
posted by Fuzzy Skinner at 3:58 PM on October 23, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

I think the music is a huge part of the vibe for that opening. Watch it with the sound off-just look at the pictures and see if they aren't a little less griping.
posted by quarterframer at 4:38 PM on October 23, 2008

As portraits, they are not formal and posed but have the look of being caught on the fly. They are not conventionally well-composed. There is a softness of focus which in some cases appears to be from slow shutter speeds. As others have noted, contrast is high and highlights are blown out. These violations of the normal rules of exposure, focus and composition make the photos seem raw and real, which I suspect was the whole point of shooting in this style.

They don't seem digital. Not saying they weren't shot digital, but that they have the look of 35mm film, which can be achieved in post-processing. I believe these photos are intentionally referencing old-school black and white photojournalism shot on 35mm film. For example, the street photography of Gary Winogrand.

How do you get this look in your photos? Start by watching this clip of Gary Winogrand in action:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tl4f-QFCUek

And study the masters:

The raw high-contrast style of these photos reminds of William Klein's work from the 1960's. There is also some Robert Frank in them - check out his seminal book "The Americans." You should also research the work of Garry Winogrand, Lee Friedlander, Helen Levitt and Eugene Smith, who are masters of 35mm black and white photography. Google them - there are some good interviews and film clips with Winogrand floating around on the web.
posted by conrad53 at 4:45 PM on October 23, 2008 [2 favorites has favorites]

You're reacting to that overblown music. It's a cheap way to make what are you are watching "compelling" (see: Every Steven Spielberg film ever).

Another gimmick bad TV dramas do is the shaky/out-of-frame/hand-held camera thing. Same effect.
posted by Zambrano at 5:47 PM on October 23, 2008

These are good old late 1960's through mid 1980's style well printed available light decisive moment photojournalistic candid photos.

Speaking as somebody who was a newspaper staff photojournalist during this time, these pictures have the typical look of that era, when we got the best results we could given the restrictions of the photographic hardware and film/processing technology of the time. We had to shoot our lenses at or near wide open, which accounts for the very limited depth of field.

The photographer who shot these most likely had the distinct advantage of good, directional light most probably provided by the film crew on set, as opposed to the usual flat light prevalent in the real world (the usual overhead office fluorescents with little pop or contrast).

In typical real world situations, in a normal low light office or other interior environment, we'd have to push our film, which essentially meant deliberately underexposing it and subsequently overdeveloping it to regain enough density in the negatives to make decent prints. A result of pushing film is a significant increase in contrast, which adds a bit of snap to the image. The down side is the increase in apparent film grain; "rawness", if you will.

Despite all of the fun stuff we can do these days with digital photography, the old "pushed 35mm Tri-X shot in available light" look is not particularly easy to achieve through post processing; which is why there are a lot of so-so Photoshop actions and plug-in purporting do do so for sale.
posted by imjustsaying at 6:18 PM on October 23, 2008 [4 favorites has favorites]

I think imjustsaying has nailed it.

The West Wing photos remind me of some of the candid White House photography by Diana Walker. (It's more recent than what imjustsaying is talking about, but that first photo of the Kerrys in the NPR slideshow shows similar contrast and depth of field, with some graininess in the grays.)
posted by Orinda at 9:14 PM on October 23, 2008

On the subject of getting the film look with digital, this photo (there's a few others in the set as well) gives the grainy, glow-y filmic look.

I shot it with my Nikon D40 at 3200 ISO for deliberate grain, adjusted levels to increase contrast, and added some blur to the edges. Going down to 1600 ISO gives less obvious grain of course.

Just an example that it is possible to get the film look, but too many photogs are so used the the lack of grain with digital SLRs that they view grain as inherently bad.
posted by Fuzzy Skinner at 9:26 PM on October 23, 2008

Three and Four from above are good examples of boke(h), Japanese for unfocused fields in the photo.
posted by troy at 9:29 PM on October 23, 2008

how could I do the same to my photos?

Do what's already been said:

- An unconventional POV and lots of also unconventional DoF (shoot wide open, don't focus on the face)
- Blown highlights (I'd shoot underexposed and then blow out in post)
- High contrast (a tight s-curve will do it)
- I wouldn't do the grain on camera (with a higher ISO) because it'll look like obvious digital grain, which usually sucks. I'd add the grain in Photoshop like so: add an overlay layer (at 50% gray), and run a noise filter. After that, emboss it. You may or may not need a gaussian blur in between. Play around with it (also with layer transparency), until you're happy with it. It's pretty simple and will get you decent results.
posted by neblina_matinal at 6:50 AM on October 24, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

They've always evoked the Kennedy White House to me. These aren't the best possible examples, but this photo and this one seem kinda West Wingy to me.
posted by kirkaracha at 8:12 AM on October 24, 2008