West Coast Rap icon, Ice Cube, was decidedly against Vaseline. But Vaseline or petroleum jelly has a litany of uses and benefits. Have chapped lips? It’ll take care of it. Looking for a cheap moisturizer? Reach for that iconic blue lid. Need your shoes shined? You guessed it. But can the ubiquitous drugstore product help make your photos better? When this idea first floated, I thought it was a joke but then it got me thinking, how can Vaseline be used to make street photographs?
A Brief History of Vaseline and Image Making
One famous anecdote involves silver screen star Doris Day and her requirement that all photographers use light diffusion to soften her skin. In the early 1920s into the 1930s, many female celebrities had similar requests as their promotional shoots were more likely to determine their next contract than box office receipts. As the story goes, fine art portraitist and Vanity Fair photographer Victor Emil Georg was known to smear Vaseline on a lens filter to maximize that “glamour” effect when photographing stars like Day. Depending on the amount of Vaseline applied, you will be able to simply soften the lens’s sharpness or add abstract swirls to fake bokeh.
Since then, many photographers have used the technique in everything from abstract photography to cinematic special effects, but what would it do for your street photography?
Peep the Technique
Before we get into the results of this experiment, it’s important to understand just how you should try this for yourself. Do NOT under any circumstances try to apply Vaseline directly to your lens. That is a sure way to damage the lens and lose a lot of money in the process. So just don’t. Instead, take a cheap UV filter (like this Tiffen UV filter I bought on Amazon) and smear a thin coat of Vaseline onto the glass. Screw it onto your lens and viola, you have an instantly softer look – even stopped down.
While this technique has been historically used for portraiture this pseudo-guide will walk you through apply this softer look to typical street photography.
The Images are all About Possibilities
When I was first given this assignment, I knew that I had to focus on the possibilities with the technique and try not to get too caught up in my head when the photos I made looked less than perfect. After all, this particular process is all about leaning into the imperfections of photography, highlighting softness or the loss of textures. Typically, when shooting street, I often like to focus on sharp focus on my subject with contrasting colors in the background or when shooting in black and white, emphasizing the light and shadow.
One thing that I found in taking on this assignment was that when you can’t rely on sharpness or even color, you MUST do all you can to get the right composition. In going through the images I shot over the past few weeks, as I began to better understand the power of composition had in creating a pleasing image, the better the resulting photos were. It also brought to light just how beautiful and ethereal everyday shots can look through this softer gaze.
All of the following images were taken using the Panasonic LUMIX S9 and the LUMIX S 18-40mm F4-6.3 lens and the Tiffen filter previously linked. All are JPEG images pulled directly from camera with minor adjustments (rotating or slight cropping only):
Will This Make You a Better Photographer?
The short answer is that yes, it will definitely make you a better problem solver. But it’s not the technique or any other process for that matter, it’s about exploring creativity. While Vaseline will most certainly add gunk to your filter, learning to lean into the process and relearn how to see will make you and your photos better. The truth is that I’ve been in a creative rut for some time and the team here at The Phoblographer has been extremely supportive – pushing each other and encouraging one another in their personal projects. At the end of the day, that’s what I hope this article does for you; that it encourages you to look at your photography through new eyes. It encourages you to try new things, even if you feel it’s not good enough. To push through the doubt and get back to creating.