>>3645677It's an interesting question, and it's got nothing to do with format size like gerfagging idiots in this thread are telling you. You have glow appearing on 8mm colour film tracks of the period, after all.
First, let's make a difference between film and still images. I know more of the former, but I assume a lot of the techniques were used for the later as well. Movies needed to be shot in certain exposures, and all of them used extremely strong lighting to achieve that effect. In every closeup you can be sure that actor was practically irradiated. In fact that's what happened. Before they figured to put uv shields in front of their lights, they permanently damaged eyes of several actors and actresses. Startles wearing sunshades meme came from that period. This light initially was very strong and harsh, only when they figured how to diffuse it properly, you start seeing this classic Hollywood look that came to be known with golden age — ie. final years of Silent Era, then through the Film Noir period including many, but not all, colour technology. Griffith was amongst the first that figured it out, he used white sheets as bounce light, and he used sating sheets on the lenses themselves! This was a prevailing top secret for a long time, and can still be glanced at times, as this screen from Psycho can show you. Specular highlights at a certain focal range, will capture diffusing filters after-effect.
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