Magnum and the Dying Art of Darkroom Printing

[skibeerr]

The problem is, it IS wrong. Why amateurs keep pushing this idiocy is beyond me. In the real world, among those who actually matter (curators, art historians, and buyers of photographs, not to mention real professionals who actually earn their living at it) this issue is settled. Digital photography is photography. Digital prints ARE photographs. There's nothing to debate; you are simply banging your head against a wall that is far bigger and stronger than you.

I shouldn't be surprised, though. RFF is still full of people who insist that photography is not even art, and THAT issue was settled a CENTURY AGO.

I know I am a dabbling dilettante at best and I have only recently began to take the process of development and wet printing seriously, committing myself to the practise of patience and consistence in the darkroom.
This is slowly starting to pay of and though frustrating at times I enjoy any progress.

I have chosen this path because it gives me pleasure and makes me more aware of which choices I should make when taking a shot. I do the latter less and am getting better printable results.

It does not give me a feeling of doing the one and only right thing, quite the opposite, and I enjoy many images produced with a variety of processes be it digital, film hybrid or wet.

Wat ruffles my feathers immensely is having to defend what I do, this I refuse.

 

[FrankS]

+1 for both thegman and skibeerr

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

I know I am a dabbling dilettante at best and I have only recently began to take the process of development and wet printing seriously, committing myself to the practise of patience and consistence in the darkroom.
This is slowly starting to pay of and though frustrating at times I enjoy any progress.

I have chosen this path because it gives me pleasure and makes me more aware of which choices I should make when taking a shot. I do the latter less and am getting better printable results.

It does not give me a feeling of doing the one and only right thing, quite the opposite, and I enjoy many images produced with a variety of processes be it digital, film hybrid or wet.

Wat ruffles my feathers immensely is having to defend what I do, this I refuse.

No one says you have to defend shooting film. I shoot film for 90% of my work, though I no longer print in the darkroom, since doing so has damaged my health pretty badly. Be careful. I respect you because you aren't pushing the silly and indefensible idea that only certain processes are legitimate. You said in the quote above that you enjoy photos made with many processes. So do I.

I think a lot of people here are not really reading what I wrote and they think I'm bashing film users. I am a film user! A few months ago, I spent a couple thousand dollars buying a complete Mamiya 6 setup, and its has already had about 50 rolls of black and white film put through it since then. What I'm bashing is mindless prejudice.

 

[jsrockit]

The problem is, it IS wrong. Why amateurs keep pushing this idiocy is beyond me. In the real world, among those who actually matter (curators, art historians, and buyers of photographs, not to mention real professionals who actually earn their living at it) this issue is settled. Digital photography is photography. Digital prints ARE photographs. There's nothing to debate; you are simply banging your head against a wall that is far bigger and stronger than you.

I shouldn't be surprised, though. RFF is still full of people who insist that photography is not even art, and THAT issue was settled a CENTURY AGO.

I have to side with Chris on this one. Digital is one of the major tools of our times (right now). To hate it just seems silly. And who truly hates film? That would be just as silly since you'd be dismissing the history of photography doing so. Too many great film images out there for anyone to hate film.

 

[bojanfurst]

And the best part of this thread remains the original post and the great book suggestions by ChrisN for those of us who choose wet printing as a part of our photographic process.

I can't say these digital vs. film threads do much for me. I could never quite understand why some digital folks feel they need to bury film, and why some film folks feel they need to justify their continuing use of film. It's all good. On some days I drink gin and tonic, on others a bottle of good wine is what's needed, and than there is craft beer from my local pub... All good...

 

[kbg32]

Since I am the Op, I re-posted here on RFF as a reference. Almost felt this was a nostalgia piece. This was not meant to be a digital vs. film thread. Ya'll can trash that stuff. I have many fond memories of toiling in the darkroom for hours, for myself and for others. I studied printing with Sid Kaplan. Printers like Sid and Pablo just don't exist anymore, or are being trained. This is a fact that can't be denied.

 

[bojanfurst]

Agreed Keith. It's actually really sad. I've wanted now for a couple of years to enrol in a not-begginer/somewhat-advanced printing workshop and it's near impossible to find one in Canada. There are a few in Europe and a I know of a few in the States, but unfortunately the US is out of the picture (as a Croatian citizen I need to get a US visa in person, in a different province which in turn could pay for most of my flight to Europe). We used to have a couple of good printers locally in St. John's, but they don't teach any more and there are no facilities left that they could teach in. So, trial and error and great examples from masters like Pablo is what's at my disposal at the moment. Thanks for that original post.

 

[bonatto]

this is also an excellent book on general BW work and has a great 40 page section on printing.

http://www.amazon.com/Black-White-Photography-Basic-Manual/dp/0316373141

apparently you can buy it for as low as U$0.01 so.....

 

[Jamie Pillers]

Since I am the Op, I re-posted here on RFF as a reference. Almost felt this was a nostalgia piece. This was not meant to be a digital vs. film thread. Ya'll can trash that stuff. I have many fond memories of toiling in the darkroom for hours, for myself and for others. I studied printing with Sid Kaplan. Printers like Sid and Pablo just don't exist anymore, or are being trained. This is a fact that can't be denied.

We're lucky here in the San Francisco Bay Area in regards to darkroom availability. I know of at least four businesses that are doing well offering both traditional darkroom and digital classes. And one of them, Rayko in San Francisco, offers a robust program of alternative printing classes covering processes like tintype, kallitype, platinum, and cyanotype.

My guess is that as time goes by, it'll be the alternative processes and large format that keep film photography vibrant. 🙂

 

[jsrockit]

I'll admit to being nearly "100% digitally uncool," as someone recently posted, with only a smattering of 120 and sheet film work. But for my friends and colleagues who use more film than I, my wishes are that the supply of their materials to persist.

That's my saying (at least I think). 🙂 I also wish, for my friends who use film (or if I want to use it again), that it continues to exist too.

 

[kbg32]

Being in the darkroom with a master printer is nothing short of magical. They are so many options besides dodging and burning to fulfilling your prints extensive (or not) tonal range. To make clear what could be invisible or lost.

Many years ago I saw a film, at least I think it ws, on Eugene Smith in his darkroom and the effort he went into the printing some of his major images. He printed dark, Minamata, and brought things out with selected and controlled use of bleaching. He wanted total control of how his images looked, even to the placement and cropping in magazines.

 

[Calzone]

Many years ago I saw a film, at least I think it ws, on Eugene Smith in his darkroom and the effort he went into the printing some of his major images. He printed dark, Minamata, and brought things out with selected and controlled use of bleaching. He wanted total control of how his images looked, even to the placement and cropping in magazines.

Eugene W. Smith is a source of inspiration as a shooter and printer for me. After seeing the "Jazz Loft" exhibit at Lincoln Center a few years ago I grew disturbed on how a great master was destroyed by artistic despair. I wondered what caused an aclaimed photographer to throw away his family and his career.

I found out from Luis Mendez that it was anger and the difficulties Eugene W. Smith experienced in controlling the editing of the work he was doing on Pittsburg. Luis was just a kid back in the late 50's, but he hung out at the Jazz Loft in the flower district and knew Eugene Smith.

Cal

 

[williams473]

The biggest hangup for me (in the darkroom) is always time. In the past 20 years I've spent LOTS of time working on images that end up not being ones I would want to show. Sure I would make contact sheets but to really envision the final print, one has to really take it all the way to a final and then decide what you have (or don't have).

So I've found a happy medium in my process that combines the virtues of both processes, because for me the wet print is worth my time if the image is worth looking at... So I scan film for any image I want to work a bit on and use Photoshop the same way I would use tools and techniqiue in the darkroom. The speed of the digital environment enables me to try all sorts of variations of the print. I get through a lot of work that way, and the bonus is that when done I have something that can be easily posted up online and that I can live with for a while to decide if the print works or not.

However, if I am to exhibit my work I still prefer a silver wet print, so I go into the home darkroom and use the digital file as a work print. I just set up my laptop in the same area where I'm washing and drying my test strips and I can keep going back to see what I need to do to get to the print I've already envisioned. It's a pretty slick way to spend less time and money on the wrong prints and end up investing the time and care only on the prints that I am sure I want to show.

 

[kbg32]

Eugene W. Smith is a source of inspiration as a shooter and printer for me. After seeing the "Jazz Loft" exhibit at Lincoln Center a few years ago I grew disturbed on how a great master was destroyed by artistic despair. I wondered what caused an aclaimed photographer to throw away his family and his career.

I found out from Luis Mendez that it was anger and the difficulties Eugene W. Smith experienced in controlling the editing of the work he was doing on Pittsburg. Luis was just a kid back in the late 50's, but he hung out at the Jazz Loft in the flower district and knew Eugene Smith.

Cal

I know Luis. Believe it or not, I was contacted by Smith's son. He found my name and email from a post I did on Smith a few years ago, to see if I would be interested in purchasing one of his father's Leicas. I personally didn't have the money, but I told him, it would make an interesting piece for his father's archive in Tucson. I also gave him the names of some collectors who would be willing to pay, with paperwork, for something like this. Don't know what happened.

I saw Smith lecture back in '75-'76. Fantastic!

 

[Calzone]

The biggest hangup for me (in the darkroom) is always time. In the past 20 years I've spent LOTS of time working on images that end up not being ones I would want to show. Sure I would make contact sheets but to really envision the final print, one has to really take it all the way to a final and then decide what you have (or don't have).

So I've found a happy medium in my process that combines the virtues of both processes, because for me the wet print is worth my time if the image is worth looking at... So I scan film for any image I want to work a bit on and use Photoshop the same way I would use tools and techniqiue in the darkroom. The speed of the digital environment enables me to try all sorts of variations of the print. I get through a lot of work that way, and the bonus is that when done I have something that can be easily posted up online and that I can live with for a while to decide if the print works or not.

However, if I am to exhibit my work I still prefer a silver wet print, so I go into the home darkroom and use the digital file as a work print. I just set up my laptop in the same area where I'm washing and drying my test strips and I can keep going back to see what I need to do to get to the print I've already envisioned. It's a pretty slick way to spend less time and money on the wrong prints and end up investing the time and care only on the prints that I am sure I want to show.

Back in art school decades ago I was a really good printer. Five years ago I returned to photography as my artistic medium, but I concentrated only on shooting and image capture (B&W film exclusively). Most recently I bought a Leica Monochrom and plan on printing digitally images that were captured digitally.

I had always intended to wet print all my negatives, and never thought I would ever shoot digital, but Leica kinda created my dream camera when they made the Monochrom.

Similar to you I'm now looking into digitally proofing and then contact printing using a digital negative using Jon Cone's Piezography. As things evolve I might actually try to do contact printing from digital negatives from my analog negatives to use the best of both analog and digital to my advantage.

Cal

 

[FrankS]

What happened here is that the OP posted a link to an article that referenced wet printing and some subsequent posters turned it into an anti-digital rant. Subsequent to that, other posters took up the "digital vs. film vs. printing technology does/does not equal photography" as a serious debate. It is not a serious debate. In that devolution lies the lack of seriousness. Not only because it is not a serious debate but also because it will never affect any serious practitioner's choice of process. The greatest lack of serious thought in this thread is underlined by the mis-reading - the mistaken idea - that Chris's posts were anti-film.

Chris points out that whatever process is used is a matter of choice by the practitioner and there it basically ends. However, the use of one process over another as the legitimizing rationale in determining the value of the practitioner's results will only serve to underline culpable ignorance - both of basic reasoning and of the myriad tools being used by practitioners, artists, photographers, whatever, everywhere.

You don't have to like any process or the variants thereof. You can like them all and choose one, another, a hybrid or none or all. You can agree or disagree with my position on this thread, or Chris's, or Roger's or anybody's. You can even suggest that the departure from the OP and the devolution into the argument and then the mis-reading of that argument which followed is reasonable. We can all be iconoclasts, islands, making pronouncements denying the legitimacy of this and denying the legitimacy of that, the only results of which are willful self-blinding gestures.

Wishing everyone an open mind and open heart,

Shane

Okay, I'm pretty sure that I wasn't ranting on film vs digital.
Shane, your characterization of Chris' view is softened. I reacted to Chris' aggressive (in my view) post. Here it is to refresh our memory:

The obsession with process is the last refuge of the intellectually shallow. The photographer with nothing to say, no vision, screams from the rooftop about how he's a "Real" photographer because he uses (insert process here). Let me clue you guys in on a few things:
1) No one who matters gives a damn if you use film or digital, or what printing process you use. People will buy your work if they like the image. If they don't, no amount of shaking your fist at the sky and yelling at the kids to get off your lawn will make them like your work.
2) There is no such thing as a "Hand-Made" photograph. Its a form of art where we use materials made in big factories by scientists and engineers. Same goes for our equipment. Sculpture, drawing, painting..those are done by hand. We photographers 'draw' using lenses none of us can make ourselves, and those lenses impose themselves greatly on the final image through their image forming characteristics (sharpness, bokeh, tone and color rendering, etc). The claim of selling handmade photographs is intellectually dishonest. If you have to resort to such chicanery to make your work look good, you might as well give up. You've failed as an artist.

For me, the process is very important. I resent being called intellectually shallow because of that.

I give a damn.

I have not failed as an artist.

From my perspective, Chris is the only one ranting.

Just wanted to get that off my chest. Thanks.

 

[FrankS]

Okay then. 🙂

 

[KM-25]

Simply put, it is personal...

I respect and admire Chris's reasoning and for sure his story, but more than anything his candor and resolve, it's personal. And yes Chris, people will buy your work if they like the image, and that includes some great black and white photographers who are also master printers who insist on a computer-free road to the final result.

When the resulting final image is better because the artist is happier with the entire journey, then absolutely, the process can matter.
If they like a photograph, people first respond to the impact of my image, but when they also find out how I arrived at the image, and they almost always ask, they are *never* disappointed to hear it is computer-free, it just adds to the uniqueness and value to them. This is arrived at without me pushing some agenda.

Film and darkroom based photographers who's work is refined and well received stand nothing to gain by downplaying the fact they have used a real darkroom versus a Lightroom for the final product, especially in an age where by and large, digital and the Internet have made a lot of photography practically worthless.

I see no value whatsoever in making a captivating and dynamic final print using the same device that people are reading this thread on when I can instead, add more value by keeping it as true to what I personally would rather be doing anyway.....

....I will fail as an artist if I do not stay true to my self, try not to take it personally.

 

[KM-25]

The point is, process is a personal choice but it is not an external arbiter of value in the absence of a successful photograph. I.e. you can make a lousy photograph, a meaningless piece, a complete failure and the process you use is not the source of the failure.

Nor is it the root of your success. It is simply the process that you have chosen and you will deal with the advantages and disadvantages presented by the particular process. How well you handle the process will inform a certain aspect of your work. But it won't be the deciding factor.

You seemed to have missed the point of what I wrote. You WILL do your best work with what you love to work with, that in of it self adds *VALUE* to your work as the resulting photograph has the most effective connectivity of your emotional creative output to your viewer.

In every single case of me having sold a fine print to a customer whether they are a luxury hotel or a private collector, when they find out that the print they are buying is in no way of digital origin, it has ALWAYS helped to seal the deal. Again this is not pushed upon the customer by me, it is simply the conversations we have in the markets I tend to sell work in, 9/10 times the topic initiated by the customer. I don't ever have to push the darkroom aspect of my work, the customer is already interested in the overall appeal of the image, I really just close the deal with the fact it is a darkroom based print and everyone is more happy for it.

This my friends...is a NO BRAINER in my particular business model and life goal as an artist, there is no question I am going to stand a much better chance of success by staying true to my self, this has already proven it self!

 

[charjohncarter]

Declining, certainly. Dying, I doubt,

Cheers,

R.

Do you think those photographers made all those 'dodge and burning' decisions: no! it was the printer. They are the real heroes of silver print photography.