David Hamilton Photography

British-born David Hamilton (born 15 April, 1933) is a famous photographer and film director associated with romantic and erotic photographs and films, such as the 1977 French lesbian romantic drams Bilitis. He moved to Paris when he was 20 to work as a graphic designer for ELLE magazine, and has lived in France ever since.

In terms of style, David Hamilton favors a grainy, soft-focus look in his photographs. Though dated now, this style was very popular in the 60s and 70s. Perhaps best described as ‘dreamy’ or ‘ethereal’, it emulates a look that is associated with impressionist oil paintings. For subject material, David Hamilton shot a lot of nude, erotic and boudoir photos, often of girls in their young teens. For this reason his work is controversial, and it is often cited in debates about when nude photography can be said to be art, and when it crosses the line into pornography.

If you’re interesting in replicating David Hamilton’s signature ‘look’, you can add film grain and soft focus effects using Photoshop. For the film grain, you should use the Film Grain filter from the filter menu. In the dialog box you have the opportunity to set Grain, Highlight, and Intensity. For starters, try a Grain of 3, Highlight of 4, and Intensity to 1. This will give only a modest amount of grain, so increase the values (particularly Intensity) if you want a stronger effect.

For the soft-focus look, you’ll need to use the Gaussian Blur filter, which you’ll also find in the Filter menu. Try a radius of between 4 and 10 pixels. Once you’ve done this, go to the Edit menu and select Fade Gaussian Blur. Set a fade Opacity of 50%. This will give you a basic soft focus effect. Play around with the settings if you don’t get quite the effect you wanted first off.

As well as soft-focus and grain, David Hamilton’s photographs are also characterized by simple, warm lighting schemes. To replicate this, look for a large light source like a big window, and position your model so that they are side on and illuminated by it, but not too close to it. For the warm element, shoot in the late afternoon when sunlight takes on a warmer, orangey-red cast, or alternatively set your White Balance to Cloudy.