During Lockdown in 2020, I tried various photography challenges to keep the creative mojo flowing and combat the boredom of being confined to home. One of the challenges involved recreating a famous image. I chose Steichen’s portrait of Gloria Swanson (image on left). It’s a photo I’ve always loved and is a face framing black & White image of Swanson gazing intensely through a patterned piece of black net material. As luck would have it, I happened to have a black net tablecloth left over from Halloween. I wrapped my head in a dark towel to mimic her turban and chose a dark lipstick, some black eyeliner (inexpertly applied) and set about attempting my version. I used a large format camera (Intrepid 5x4 with a Nikkor-W 180mm lens) and some experimental New55PN BNW Instant film. It took me 4 or 5 attempts, using my rapidly dwindling (and expensive) stock of this film. Not the wisest choice perhaps but it was what I had to hand. I rarely take portraits, much less selfies and I underestimated how hard it would be to get the focus right. It’s definitely not a perfect image but I am really glad I tried it.

That time in Lockdown when I attempted to recreate Steichen’s portrait of Gloria Swanson using my Intrepid 5x4 camera & New55 Instant film

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