It could take three hours to get the lighting right. But, after that, I could make my subject younger than a plastic surgeon could.”  — Cornel Lucas

I’ve always been attracted to those beautiful black and white glamorous film-stars portraits of the 40s and 50s. This one is a Cornel Lucas’ who was a British photographer (1920 – 2012).

Probably Lucas’ greatest success as a portrait photographer was the photographs of Marlene Dietrich — arguably the best-known diva of the German cinema.

After the second war, Lucas joined Denham Studios where he made hundreds of portraits of more than 50 starts of that time. In 1955 Lucas married one the most glamorous British young stars of the time, Belinda Lee, however the marriage finished by 1959. Lee was killed two years later in a car accident.

This is a beautiful portrait of Belinda Lee, the technique lighting used is known as “Butterfly”, it’s named that way because of the shape of the shadow that falls directly beneath the nose. The lighting beautifully emphasizes the cheeks and jaw, standing out the beautiful face of the subject.

© All images may be protected by copyright. They are posted on this site in accordance with fair use principles:

1. it is a historically significant artwork
2. the images are only being used for informational and educational purposes
3. the image is readily available on the internet
4. the image is a low-resolution copy of the original artwork and is unsuitable for commercial use

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