The Costica experiment

On January 21, 2021 I started the Costica Experiment. Due to lack of time, it was not continued at the time, but now it is time to pick it up again. First about the name.

Costică Acsinte (sometimes spelled Axinte) was a Romanian war photographer who, after being fired, opened a studio in Slobozia, IL.

On Flickr is a project on digitizing Acsinte's glass plate negatives, supported by Asociația Culturală Atelierele Albe and Muzeul Județean Ialomița.

The photos have no copyright restrictions so can be used freely. If you want to try this yourself, you can search for suitable photos yourself.

Here the link to the photos of Costică Acsinte.

The photos in this group are maintained by a group of people who have made a great job of it. they can also be found on Facebook.

WORKFLOW GLOBAL

I generally use the following steps to edit the photos:

• Download the image I want to use. I usually have a few in stock
• Enlarge the image 4x to better match the size of contemporary photos. I set the pixel resolution to 300px.
• Colorize the part of the photo I want to use. If I then want to isolate the person to use in another photo, it is easier to select because he is colored in a grayscale environment.
• Isolating the figure for use in my composition.
• Building the composition
• Finishes such as light, tone, atmosphere, etc.
• As mentioned, these are the global steps, if they are worked out in detail this article would be too large. Detailed videos on all points can be found on YouTube and other articles elsewhere on the Internet.

EXAMPLE

Below is an example of an original photo and how I used it.

Feel free to try this yourself, you have a guideline now!