Curbside: a black-and-white film portrait AI photoshoot
Curbside gives you five black-and-white street portraits and one detail frame, made with a 50 mm rangefinder lens wide open on ISO 400 film. The person stays crisp while the sidewalk behind melts into soft gray, and the grain runs even from highlight to shadow.
Art direction: Alex But
- Camera
- 35 mm rangefinder
- Lens
- 50 mm
- Aperture
- f/2
- Shutter
- 1/1000 s
- Film
- ISO 400 black and white
- Filter
- Yellow
Best for
Six frames from this shoot
Five frames and one detail, made by haloshot from three phone photos of one person.
Frame 1 · Curbside 
Frame 2 · Curbside 
Frame 3 · Curbside 
Frame 4 · Curbside 
Frame 5 · Curbside 
Detail · Curbside
About the black-and-white film look
By late afternoon the sun has slipped behind the buildings, so the light is open shade from the bright sky at the end of the street, broad and soft from one side. Pale stone facades bounce gray fill into the shadow side. A yellow filter calms that sky and holds skin in the middle grays. At 1/1000 s handheld every coat fold freezes, and distant passers-by blur only from the shallow focus.
Clothes, place and when to pick it
haloshot dresses women in a charcoal gabardine coat over a collarless raw-edged black jacket with lug-sole boots, and men in a long charcoal trench over a white shirt buttoned to the neck with commando-sole derbies. The set is a narrow old-town sidewalk lined with parked cars. Choose it for a portfolio opener or a quiet profile photo of your own face.
How it works
Add three photos of yourself: face, half turn and full length. haloshot renders a free five-frame preview of Curbside with your face. Pick the frames you like and keep them in 4:5 HD.
How to shoot black and white film portraits on the street
Open shade, a 50 mm lens wide open and ISO 400 black-and-white film give soft separation and even grain, while a yellow filter holds the bright sky back.
- Stand the subject in open shade facing the bright end of a narrow street, near a pale wall for fill.
- Load HP5 or Tri-X in a rangefinder with a 50 mm and a yellow filter, which costs about one stop.
- Metered through the filter, late open shade lands near f/2 at 1/1000 s; focus at 2 to 3 m.
- Give small tasks instead of poses: lean on a car, walk the curb, sit on a step.
A rangefinder viewfinder never shows depth of field, so trust the lens scale.
Set notes by Alex But, art director · Updated
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Shoot Curbside with your face
Three photos in, five free preview frames out. Keep the best ones in HD.