In the video, Tatiana Hopper goes into great detail to explain the purpose behind shooting in a film noir style and what is being said visually. Every scene is very intentional, from the way it’s lit to the use of shadows and composition. Each scene could be a photograph and stand on its own. The director, Steven Zailian and cinematographer, Robert Elswit wanted to shoot in a film noir style and make everything very intentional. Every person and object is placed just right and in many scenes only one key light is used to highlight whats important in the scene, whether it’s the actor or an important object in the room. The amount of time it takes to set up and light each scene and the attention to detail are extensive and impressive.
Hopper points out that the lighting in Ripley is reflective of historic paintings, how Zailian and Elswit pay homage to the painter Caravaggio, and why lighting is important to tell the story.
This is a must-watch series for anyone looking to improve their own lighting in photography and how to tell a story with light and shadows, and how to use camera angles to tell a story.
I shot B&W from 1968-1998 (1976-1998 professionally). This wasn't an artistic choice, it was a practical choice. The target was usually a B&W publication, or for same day prints. Also, B&W films were usually shot that way for budget reasons, again for practical reasons. One can romance this sort of thing but color accuracy in a personal darkroom wasn't cost effective. I'm just an old grumpy man I guess but I fail to see the appeal of this even though I became quite good at monochrome portraits.
Don’t you know that anything BW is the art?
I shot B&W from the 60's to the 90's and always thought at its best it was a purist's art.
There is a huge canon of great published B&W photographers to refer to. You can get into semantics on craft versus 'art' but many believe it's (a legit folk) 'art'.
I'm sure it is. I was in rapid production environment for photography so the artistic thing came as my total frame count happened. The times I felt like an artist where special for me when I was able to do my own exhibits at work.
I watched Ripley and it's an excellent series, overall. The photography was truly spectacular and meticulously executed. It's definitely one of the best looking B+W films/series since color became the standard. Another B+W film that was quite good came out a few years back called The Captain.