I realize I'm quickly getting old and what I say holds little to zero meaning for young people just coming into photography. While I wish it were different there's practically nothing I can do about it. Except, I can post something and maybe many years from now, someone somewhere might have a question about one thing or another and find my observations of interest that can then help them in their own investigations and work.
In talking with my father I learned that his father knew how to hitch horses to a wagon and drive into Los Angeles, California. I don't have that knowledge nor will I likely ever have that experience. What I know is that if I wanted or needed to I could find a way to gain the required knowledge and learn to apply it.
For some years I haunted a roundhouse where several steam locomotives were housed. In talking with old engineers I came to realize that the knowledge of how to operate a steam engine is best past from generation to generation though conversation, demonstration and shared experience. If I wanted to operate something like this I could either join a crew or visit England where there are courses on how to drive steam tractors. I have friends who've done this and they had a wonderful time.
Basic knowledge such as hitching horses and driving steam engines, while rare, still exists because just enough people find these things interesting and potentially useful.
Similarly, I feel I have knowledge in the field of photography that many people may never have. It's in a very narrowly defined area, I'll grant that. Yet, when it comes to beauty and artistic expression, I've noted something that, for me, has been significant. It has helped me define the difference between a muddy black and white image and a pleasing one.
In this spirit a question might someday, somewhere, be asked by someone about how black and white silver halide chemistry prints can look so "luminous" and "beautiful." Compared with too many digital black and white I've seen, film prints can "sing." How did the film print guys and gals do that?
As background, I used to print black and white images of all manner of size, from miniature to 40x60inches using nearly everything from Minox through to 8x10inch negatives and beyond. In my own work some of my negatives went to 12x20inches.
Back in the day there were print labs all over LA and Orange County and I worked for several professional custom labs in Hollywood, San Clemente, and Irvine. Given the close proximity to galleries around LA I have had the pleasure of closely inspecting many prints, including those made by the "greats" as well as works of those printed by rather talented amateurs and lesser known working professionals. I'd like to think I did some very small part in contributing to the stack of "good prints" that circulated the LA and Orange County basin.
Sure, a good print maker could "save" just about anything from severely under to horridly over exposed negatives (try doing that! with digital files). But, in general, the better craftspeople I found were those who took pains to properly expose and process their film. Correctly exposed images (which is something infinitely easier to do in digital these days) were demonstrably easier to print and were able to express a wonderful range of tones.
Here is a very short list of photographers who, to me, did/do a fine job printing traditional black and white images. They can be an example for us as to what is possible with film and who's images we can compare our digital or hybrid film/digitized works against.
- Ray Bidegain
- Ray's platinum/palladium prints have an astounding subtly
- He also makes beautiful photogravure prints
- Sandy King
- Sorry about the YT video, Sandy's original website doesn't seem to exist
- His carbon tissue prints can be mind-blowingly stunning
- John Whimberly
- John's work expresses a strong range of tones from pure black to pure white
- He is one of the True Masters of the art of print making (if you ever get a chance to talk with him he's also a very interesting person)
- Ansel Adams
- His prints were consistently fine, even if the content is a bit "aloof" by current image viewing standards
- He published his techniques and processes which were helpful when working with film
- He had a number of assistants over the years who's own works are worth searching out (see, minimally, Alan Ross and John Sexton)
- Howard Bond (added July 19, 2024)
- Sorry for the cr*p link as Howard's prints are much more beautiful than can be shared on-line
- Haven't heard of him, right? If you're serious about looking at great BW prints, this man made more than a few brilliant images
- Sally Mann
- Her works, film, wet-plate collodion, to me, are pure art
Certainly, there is a large community of digital black and white practitioners who are pleased with the results they currently achieve. This blog entry might not be for them. Rather, as I said earlier, if someone notes a difference in "luminosity" of early silver halide prints over digital B&W work and would like to understand the difference, here it is.
From a technical perspective there are things we can do based on understanding how film and digital materials react, each in their own way. Here is a high level overview of those differences and a suggested image processing path for both technologies.
Film -
- Expose for the shadows
- Note: If there is something in the shadows we want to see in a final print, we need to make sure there is that information on the negative.
- Develop for the highlights
- Note: Film can be surprisingly forgiving and can retain information in the highlight regions. This is one of the things that gives film it's characteristic "look."
- Set the print exposure time for pure black and pure white
- Set the contrast to expand or contract the tonal range
- Note: Raised midtones are materially inherent in the way film negatives are printed to paper.
Mamiya C220, 80mm f/2.8 lens
Ilford FP4 Plus, souped in D76
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Digitized using Sony A7,
Nikon Micro-Nikkor 55mm f/3.5
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Processed using the following digital recipe...
Result EXACTLY matches chemical prints
made from the same negative
Digital -
- Expose for the highlights
- Note: If there is something in the highlights we want to see in a final image, we need to make sure there is that information in the file. When a pixel hexadecimal value is FFFFFF (pure white), there is zero information to be extracted, no matter how low we take the EV during processing, so we need to protect against "blown highlights."
- Process for the shadows
- Note: These first two bullet items are inverted from the way film materials behave.
- Set the black and white points (using curves, exposure, etc)
- Raise the midtones
- The secret to making digital BW images look like silver halide prints is right here.
- Set the contrast to expand or contract the tonal range
- Set the "brightness"/"lightness" to taste
- Note: Process using "brightness/"lightness" to set the overall tones of an image is important as this tool does not change the black/white end points, where modifying "exposure" will.
Sony A6300, Sigma 30mm f/2.8 DG DN
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Processed using the above digital recipe
Additional Resources ~
Earlier I posted this recipe for making decent BW images from digital.
Mike Johnson of the Online Photographer has published several excellent articles on this topic -
- On the "problems" of digital BW
- On how to correct digital BW
- On BW tonal range ~ part 1
- On BW tonal range ~ part 2
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