artistic
Plenty of people love this color cover portrait of Carole Lombard, from the June 1938 issue of Hollywood magazine...since it's simply so, well, unusual. Today, someone who follows me at the Twitter site "It's the pictures that got small" posted it. A comment came from "Forever Louise Brooks" -- "That's an odd perspective for that cover photo...!", leading to this response: "Very interesting and unusual."
That it is indeed, but "It's the pictures" showed just how unusual it was.
First, while color photography was no stranger to Hollywood (magazine title or entire industry) still imagery by early 1938, this isn't from '38. More than likely it's from a Paramount session in 1935 or 1936, possibly under Bud Fraker -- and if true color shots were made, I've never seen them. Here's the original, at the angle it was intended to be shown:
At least two more portraits came from that session (the backgrounds give proof), and here they are:
The lower still, where Lombard looks directly at you, has an intense charm.
