cabinet card with vignette – Gagen and Fraser Studio, Toronto
The basic idea of this tool is to block out a bit or much of the background with no sharp lines between the subject and the background. For a portrait, the resulting head and shoulders print appears to be like that of a sculpted bust.
Modern denizens of the smartphone brigade even have an ‘edit’ feature for their photos called ‘vignette’ with the degree of vignetting similarly variable.
Ev begins this article as follows, “We often hear the expression “vignette“. The word is the diminutive of the French vigne, which was derived from the Latin vinea meaning a vine.
“It was attached to ornaments representing vine leaves, tendrils and grapes in ancient manuscripts, flowers, head and tail pieces in books. Later it was applied to any woodcut or engraving not enclosed by a definite border.
“After some search I found the above example [in the article] of true vignette lettering. Even if the early photographers couldn’t pronounce it, [vin-yet] they found the idea of soft edges very handy. It solved the problem of what to do with hands, flattered corpulent sitters, and resembled a sketched portrait.”
Well, you know the routine by now … Join the PHSC and we will send you your own DVD where you can read Ev’s story in the pdf file for issue 14-2. See ‘MEMBERSHIP’ above to use a cheque, or the buttons at right to use your credit card or your PayPal account. Address any questions to our membership secretary, Lilianne Schneider, member@phsc.ca.
