"No Editing Allowed"

[thomd]

So I realize that in the real-world this is wholly impractical. I'm shooting 100% film. I'm fairly new to rangefinders and doing my own developing, and I had this thought: it would be so much simpler if I did traditional dark-room developing, rather than worrying and fretting over just how to properly scan my negatives or digitize my film: what if I just only allow myself to print things that don't need editing, or that require a minimal amount that could be done with traditional darkroom techniques? I figure it will make me much more attentive to composition and properly framing each shot, rather than thinking "Oh well, I can just crop it later."

I'm not saying that people who edit photos are any less "genuine" or anything than people who do...but do you think that as a learning exercise this is a good thing to do? Or is it just unnecessarily limiting when in the end I'm going to have to learn to know what shots can be fixed and what shots can't, and then have that knowledge dictate the sort of images I end up actually snapping?

Also — throwing away negatives...bad idea or good idea? I figure I'd only keep the "keepers" and pitch the rest.

 

[f16sunshine]

Editing is part of photography just like any other part. From the moment you raise the camera to your eye to compose, choose exposure, DOF, frame etc… you are editing. In the wet dark room you will not stop editing but rather have a different set of parameters to choose from. Paper type, contrast, exposure on and on. I don't see a way to escape editing.

 

[bugmenot]

To say that printing in the darkroom is equivalent to no editing is a bit of a stretch. There are and were countless photographers who manipulated their photographs quite thoroughly.

Here's an "article" that goes into a little more detail ... http://www.theverge.com/2012/10/12/...truth-lies-and-art-before-and-after-photoshop

Now, if you prefer to use a darkroom and print your photos, and you don't happen to have a need to post your photos in digital form online or otherwise, then sure, darkroom is a good fit.

However, if you are doing it merely because you want to avoid editing your photos, whether it is dodging or burning, adjusting brightness and contrast or cropping, and otherwise, then I am not sure if a darkroom will really diminish that itch to want to edit your photos. Editing is part of the process. It's just that your tools and set of available mediums change.

Personally, the last time I recall working in a darkroom, I would have probably wasted 18-20 sheets of paper while trying to get the prints, whether it was the exposure or otherwise, JUST right. And that was while printing just one or two frames ... Some mistakes were careless ones, others were made after evaluating the print. In fact, I wouldn't even call them mistakes. Perhaps trials would be a better term.

The advantage of digital editing is that you don't waste paper and time. You get to see the results of whatever editing you apply to your image right away.

 

[Pioneer]

Learning to print well requires learning how to edit. This is a truth whether you are using digital or analogue. Once in a blue moon you might come up with something right from the camera that just works, but that is very rare, and something to truly treasure.

As far as I am aware, all the great photographers edited their work. This includes cropping, burning, dodging, etc...

Simple Workflow for all Good Prints.
1. Take picture
2. Develop picture
3. Print working copy and evaluate.
4. EDIT
5. Print another working copy and evaluate.
6. EDIT

And so on...five, six, seven times or more. Maybe if you get as good as Ansel was you might be good after two or three.

 

[Richard G]

I never cropped, for decades, partly because of HCB but really because without my own darkroom there was no way to conveniently do so. With digital I can crop, straighten, dodge and burn. I might see a shot and know that the current lens is wider than ideal, but to change lenses will see me miss the shot. Is cropping that picture 'wrong'? I do try to frame carefully when possible, but RFs are inaccurate and with film and digital Leicas I reckon I have three different 50mm FOV to frame line ratios, at least. Some manipulation of the taken image is to me no longer a surrender and sloppy, just the opposite. With wide angle lenses and architecture I intend at the outset to crop a lot of the empty foreground, except where it has interest, as I am trying to get straight, parallel verticals.
Furthermore, the most important part of editing is what you even choose to keep and show in the first place. That's more radical than a slight crop.

 

[NeeZee]

As others said editing is part of the whole process.
But to limit yourself and follow certain 'rules' is a common practice among artists.
A 'no cropping policy' for example might help you improving composition. If you ask me, heavy cropping almost never makes a shot better and cropping in general will never turn a really bad shot into a really good one. just my opinion of course.

 

[MartinP]

Only you know why you are making the photographs. They are your photographs, so if you would like to work in that way to achieve the result you want then go ahead.

If by 'editing' you mean to modify what you have on the negative in some way, on the way to a print, then remember that you will - as a minimum - need to select the size of the print, the type of paper, it's contrast and the exposure time. You could perhaps try making large-format, straight contact-prints as the least-edited depiction of what is on the negative, but you may find that the work required to make the neg then becomes a form of editing itself.

The historical manner of producing careful and deliberate photographs is/was (more or less) to decide what you wanted to see as the end result and then use various tools and processes in different ways to produce that result. There is no special reason why you 'must' work the same way and it might be interesting not to do so, or it might not. It depends . . .

 

[benlees]

Don't throw away negs- it's not like they take up a huge amount of room- unless you are truly prolific, in which case editing maybe something to work on!

 

[bugmenot]

Only you know why you are making the photographs. They are your photographs, so if you would like to work in that way to achieve the result you want then go ahead.

I like that. A photo is the photographer's vision. If achieving that vision requires some manipulation, whether minimal or not, then so be it. To artificially limit one's self, or to copy the visual style of another photographer is simply killing off that imaginative part of the artist's mind.

 

[gho]

I would start with trying to learn how to expose and develop a negative correctly first. A scanner is quite convenient. A negative that scans well should print well too. I found the histograms of the scans quite informative, but eyeballing a negative against a window works too. Don't throw away your negatives, the trash of today may be the keeper of tomorrow.

Starting to wet print is a good idea too, if you want to have silver prints. And wet printing tells you something about how the negative transfers to paper and later you may want to modify your exposures based on your printing preferences. Also in the darkroom editing is quite normal. It is possible to crop, to dodge, to burn, to tone and to shape the overall appearance of the final product. Editing is a normal and important part of the photographic process.

 

[Chris101]

...
Also — throwing away negatives...bad idea or good idea? I figure I'd only keep the "keepers" and pitch the rest.

I have many negatives that I have shot over the last few decades. At the time I rejected them, but kept them in a binder. More recently, I have explored those binders full of pictures, and found many gems hidden in there. Had I thrown them away, they would be gone.

 

[bugmenot]

I have many negatives that I have shot over the last few decades. At the time I rejected them, but kept them in a binder. More recently, I have explored those binders full of pictures, and found many gems hidden in there. Had I thrown them away, they would be gone.

Some of my complete, absolute rejects of the past are now considered "art" by abstract and lomography crowds 😀

 

[Pablito]

I never cropped, for decades, partly because of HCB

But then HCB did crop when he needed to....

 

[btgc]

Then one have to limit himself in shooting process too, say, using camera w/ single speed and/or aperture. Preferably taking only one roll of film out, that is, no spare rolls.

 

[gho]

Just another tip, if you want to learn how to get a correct exposure, a digital camera with manual controls is really useful, because you get immediate feedback. Film is advanced in my opinion and needs more time and work.

 

[greyelm]

I did the whole darkroom thing back in the 80s and I used to straighten, crop, dodge and burn. That's part of the fun and the craft. Most old masters (painters) overpainted their work in progress to achieve their desired end result so why not photographers.

Their is nothing wrong with the no editing concept if it produces the desired results and can add that extra challenge to the taking of photos.

Chacun a son gout.

 

[Roger Hicks]

There are only two reasons for a photographer not to edit his or her own work. One is false purism. The second is laziness.

Cheers,

R.

 

[MRohlfing]

There are only two reasons for a photographer not to edit his or her own work. One is false purism. The second is laziness.

Third reason: The photographer uses slide film and projects the slides 🙂

 

[ottluuk]

DON'T throw away negatives in your learning stages. Your standards for successful, interesting or adequate image will change without a doubt. The same goes for subject matter. A rather mundane image now could become an invaluable document in years to come.

As others have said, editing/manipulating is an integral part of photography - and should be accepted as such. Self-limiting exercises can teach you some things but you also need to know when to stop the exercise, pull out all the stops and move on.

All negative processes require a certain amount of manipulation to achieve optimal quality in the print. This is because of many things - but a central reason is that the ranges of tones visible in nature, transmitted through a developed negative and reflected from a finished print are markedly different. With each step of the process, you lose some information. Achieving an effective illusion of reality, a sense of "being there" in the print could be compared with charcoal drawing. You lack the resolution and tonal range to accurately depict reality, but by over-emphasizing certain areas of contrast you can fool the eye into seeing more than is actually on the paper.

If you want a finished product out of your camera, you might try instant film (Fuji Instax/FP and the Impossible Project stuff) or, with some reservation, E6 slide film (that is, it's finished if projection is your goal; getting a good print or scan of slide film can be tricky due to its high contrast and dense dark areas).

 

[Sparrow]

But then HCB did crop when he needed to....

... he never cropped, he had a man do it for him