The Vintage Invasion

05May11

Throughout the years we’ve been obsessed in color correcting our images on film, then digitally through photoshop and even invested in high end printers. All to make the red really red, the sky its truest blue form and the skin tone to match those of its real human subject.

All of a sudden I’ve been noticing this vintage wash treatment trend in both editorial, cinematography and advertising. I don’t exactly know when this revival began, I’m guessing end of 09 and more so in 2011. I don’t know who started this craze because I don’t think it’s original, but it’s rather fun.

In its own unoriginal concept, this throw back to retro photot treatments are nice to look at, depending on how you use it, it can either look campy or glamourous. There’s been a lot of these vanilla or magenta skin tones, red and green light leaks. Of course now, creative directors and photographers placed their own modern spin on it. I noticed that a lot of the vanilla and green wash are back from the 80s, the magenta moods from the 60s and my favorite, the lomo effect, and they have these colors have been saturated to make them more “new/current”.

Here are some images I’ve gathered as samples from editorials and fashion ads. There’s been a lot of them so I’m sure these aren’t the only ones. So do message me if any of you have found something more remarkable.

I started playing around with it as well in my own photos to see what the fuss was about and it’s been interesting. It was so simple, just play around with the RGB settings on your PSD. I had a great time doing these: