Avedon's Instructions

[morback]

to his printer...

😱

I am personally glad to be out of the darkroom and doing a hybrid process, even if the end result does not reach the same sensuality...

 

[rogue_designer]

That's pretty detailed. Does anyone know, was Avedon a good printer himself? Or did he entirely rely on someone else for that aspect?

 

[squirrel$$$bandit]

Hard. Core.

 

[antiquark]

Does anyone know what the numbers represent?

 

[rogue_designer]

I was guessing seconds of dodge or burn.

 

[j_fletcher]

I would love to watch a master printer at work on that! Any one got the 'after' image to post as a comparison?

 

[morgan]

I was guessing seconds of dodge or burn.

That's what I would assume. That's pretty detailed, although if you're a solid photoshop user, you probably make that many adjustments without thinking about it. It just seems strange to see them written out like that.

 

[AgentX]

If you do it in the darkroom, people will call it mastery. If you do it in Photoshop, people call you a cheater...

(ed: Post made before Morgan's was up!!)

 

[Nikon Bob]

If you do it in the darkroom, people will call it mastery. If you do it in Photoshop, people call you a cheater...

(ed: Post made before Morgan's was up!!)

Strange isn't it.

Bob

 

[le vrai rdu]

That's pretty detailed. Does anyone know, was Avedon a good printer himself? Or did he entirely rely on someone else for that aspect?

according to his instruction he should have been a good one 😀

 

[dfoo]

If he knew the base exposure in seconds then seconds would be a good guess. Otherwise, what could it be? It cannot be stops...

 

[paulfitz76]

Remarkable!

Remarkable!

These look like typical dodge/burn requirements when you are contact printing large format (8 x 10 and larger) negs in a contact print box. Used to place tissue paper inside the box, then cut holes or add pieces of paper to create a very consistent dodge and or burn effect. This was a very slow and painstaking process, but very accurate for large numbers of prints. Always had to make sure you accounted for development difference when you process one test print and then expose 10 to 20 prints and process them all together.

Photoshop is soooo much better. If there was only a way to inexpensively make a large format neg (color or b/w) from the computer image and then print that.

 

[MCTuomey]

exhibition of his in my town - excited to see those prints.

a friend of mine has a signed & dedicated slipcover edition of "Avedon" where Capote speaks to his obsession over printing. apparently he was relentless.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

Avedon didn't do contact prints with all that work on them, they were very large enlargements, some over 10 feet tall! No one gets that exacting with an 8x10 print, its impossible.

 

[sepiareverb]

I printed 810 contacts for a long time using one of those old Air Force contact printers with all the bulbs. By turning off bulbs and using layers of white and yellow tracing paper or tissue one could get remarkably precise- much more so than I ever thought when I was taught how to do it. We'd even add some pencil or marker to the tissue paper sometimes. I wonder if those kinds of paper are still available now that architecture is all digital.

 

[antiquark]

Another question: what do the plus numbers mean? Was he brightening or darkening those areas?

 

[PICHA]

His negative was quite...bad, IMHO...:angel:

 

[dfoo]

Another question: what do the plus numbers mean? Was he brightening or darkening those areas?

Looking at the image, its very likely + is burn, - is dodge.

 

[Sam N]

A photography teacher of mine, himself a master printer, showed us this same picture in class.

If Avedon did have these skills, why would he spend time making the prints himself? It's an extremely time-consuming process and I'm sure he was busy and enjoyed shooting much more. Printing is fun in its own way, but I think a lot of the big photogs rely on good printers rather than doing it themselves.

 

[Nicolás Raddatz]

Very informative, thanks for sharing!