Most of the posts in quotes are by Erik. Post numbers are included for easy reference. I've prefaced my responses with the word "Me" for mine.
#10 “By far the best thing of gelatin silver printing is the enormous shelf life of silver-gelatin prints compared to spray-painted digital prints. It is incomprehensible that so many people do not consider the shelf life of their photos important.”
#34 “Don't think I have anything against digital photography. It's good for internet use and the like - as long as you don't think digital photography is an "advancement". Many people do.”
#37 “Yes, but I only give a damn about artistic achievements
made by people. Art that is made by a machine, leaves me cold. I can't help it.”
#39 “Yes, that is well known, a painting appears more beautiful if it gives the impression of being made with the greatest of ease, take Velasquez for example. But if something is made by a machine, it doesn't make any impression at all.”
#53 “… I do not like color photography, not on film and not digital. Color photography can be useful for advertising and can be instructive etcetera, but for me it is not an art. Digital b+w is in my eyes a kind of robot-art for people who don't want to take the trouble to learn something that is difficult or expensive and therefore settle for a product that is automatically generated and that in my eyes therefore is - as an art - uninteresting, kitsch.”
#78 “I make darkroom prints since 1967. From my work only RC paper has ever oxidized. "Carbon on cotton rag" sounds like East-Indian ink on handmade paper. Doesn't that suffer from handling, such as leafing through a box with prints?”
#84 “All inkjet prints I've seen are very vulnerable. The paper is thin and the image is like coating. If you keep them in a pile in a box and look at them often, they wear out. That does not happen with silver gelatin prints.”
#91 “If you want to make small prints this method [split grade printing] is handier than all the dodging and burning in the world. Nobody has hands that are small enough to dodge and burn on small prints. Saves paper too.”
#108 “Bell is typically a burn and dodge printer. Problem with that is that you can do it on only on large prints.”
#134 “I never dodge and burn, but I make split grade prints and then dodging and burning is not necessary. But this discussion was here before. Most people don't know what split grade printing is, btw. The big advantage of split grade printing is that you can easily make several exactly equal prints. Dodging and burning is fine, but but costs a lot of time and paper and therefore money.”
#137 me “For people who have some experience printing, dodging and burning can be quite economical. When I was doing it professionally it rarely took more than two sheets of paper, and often only one. Here's an example of Robin Bell printing a new negative using dodging and burning. His first print is decent, but he makes minor refinements on the second to achieve his finished print. It's almost exactly the way the other two photographers and I printed when I was working at the architectural/commercial photo firm many years ago, except I'd use a couple of L shaped pieces of black poster board for dodging and burning in addition just to using my hands as Robin is shown doing in this video. Opposing L shaped boards allowed for making even finer adjustments than hands alone.”
#139 “In the past there was no VC paper, so printers used their burn and dodge abilities. Now there is split grade printing wich is much more economical and much more effective. Moreover, in split grade printing one can burn and dodge as much as one wants. The problem, of course, is that burning and dodging is never exactly repeatable.”
#141 Me “The only way split grade printing is exactly repeatable without dodging and burning is if one is willing to accept gray highlights. I'm not.”
#143 Me “I feel bad contradicting so much of what you're saying, but you keep making statements that are just not true. The results from dodging and burning can be very repeatable -- that's one of the main reasons so many professional printers use it. But if you don't know how to do it correctly, of course the results would not be optimal.”
#146 Me “I don't want to attack Erik, but he's so defensive about his split printing technique that he can't seem to mention it without denigrating dodging and burning. I feel the need to speak up to set the record straight for those with less experience.”
#163 Me “I have nothing whatsoever against split grade printing. In fact, I've used it ever since I started printing professionally. But it's just another tool, like dodging and burning, to pull the most out of negatives. I object to it when it is used as a cure all to try to solve all printing problems, even in places where dodging and burning would be more appropriate, and when it is used in such a heavy handed manner that the highlights or lighter areas of the print become unnaturally dull and gray. I have to admit, my real pet peeve is snow printed that way so that it looks like a smooth gray carpet where all the nice little highlights that are there naturally are obliterated.”
#175 “Well, I was talking about
printing the negative, not about
changing the image. With split grade printing there are of course enough ways to dodge and burn if one likes to do that. You must not interpret my words in the wrong way.”
#186 “gelatin silver print (color skopar 50mm f2.5) leica mp
no burning and dodging” insert photo with black blob for person
#187 “Burning and dodging changes the mood in a photograph, but I take photographs of moods I like, so no burning and dodging for me.”
#188 me ”Regarding your claim that "burning and dodging changes the mood in a photograph", anything done to the print or negative can change the mood of the photograph, including split grade printing. So, what's your real point? I think this is just another of your not-so-thinly-veiled attacks on dodging and burning. It's really getting tiresome. Unless someone has almost superhuman perception, it's almost impossible to predict in advance precisely how a straight print of a scene will appear . Maybe you are one of those super humans who possess that ability, but the odds are against it. The reality is that you're using your split grade printing to"change the mood" of what you're getting straight out of the camera. If not, you'd be making straight prints with a single grade of paper. So, please, give your attacks on dodging and burning a rest. All your claims against it and in favor of split grade printing are seeming very hollow.”
#189 me referencing black blob photo “Is this really how you saw this scene live? Where's the guy's face? Or any detail in his coat? They are both just black blobs with absolutely NO detail. I guarantee that anyone standing in the position where you took the photo would have been able to see plenty of detail there including his expression and what he was holding in his hands. These may seem like small points for this particular photo, but they are just demonstrative of how you print all your photos. It takes skill to be able to retain detail in shadow areas and it can be done without destroying the natural feel of the scene. You often mention paintings but I don't recall any of the masters representing their subjects as detail-less black blobs.”
#190 “Invest in a good computerscreen. On my screen his face is clear, but unsharp because he is out of the dept of field. It is a dark man from Surinam, btw. Brusby, why do you put so much time and effort into criticizing my photos? Don't you have better things to do?“
#191 Me “I have a large, calibrated monitor and I stand by my statements about the lack of shadow detail. Luckily anyone reading this doesn't have to take my word or yours. They can judge for themselves.
Erik van Straten said:
Brusby, why do you put so much time and effort into criticizing my photos? Don't you have better things to do?
Me: If you'll look closely you'll see in every case I'm only responding to your posts when you make some bullshit statement denigrating dodging and burning. For months I didn't respond to your repeated posts but I've finally just gotten tired of seeing your biased and unsubstantiated crap go unchallenged. When you make claims that are obviously not true, I'm going to respond.
I don't know why you seem to want to wage a personal vendetta against dodging and burning. It's a widely accepted method used by many if not most pro printers. No one is forcing you to use it or even suggesting you do. But you seem to take some sort of perverse pleasure in deriding it at every opportunity. Why? The only thing that seems obvious to me is that you derive some feeling of superiority by employing what you think -- erroneously -- is a much better system than others are using.
I frankly don't care if you use dodging and burning or not. And I couldn't care less about whether your prints lack shadow detail or have gray highlights. But I do care about false claims and I'll continue to respond to them.“
#215 “I'm sorry if I said something wrong, but in all the years I've been visiting the Rangefinderforum, I've never had any problems and I haven't been approached as aggressively as I have been lately by a certain person. That spoiled my enjoyment here to a large extent.”
