Ralph Gibson "look"

[raytoei@gmail.com]

Hi,

I am trying to follow Ralph Gibson's method of photography.

After reading much of his "method", as well as viewing the generous galleries on his website, I boiled down the Ralph Gibson look into 3 parts:

a. Over Develop and Over Exposure to capture as much details as possible. The secret sauce is the dark room, where manipulation is done in the printing.

b. Chiaroscuro, strong contrast between shadows and highlights + Grain.

c. Isolation of subjects / objects.

Other things to note:

d. He uses 35, 50, 90 on the M6. He uses color, but mostly known for his black and white.

e. He is known to use TRIX 400 pulled to 100 ~ 200 iso. And develop in Rodinal. The time is 1+25 for 7 or 11 minutes, this is based on the old TRI-X formula.

here is my version, though it was shot on the GW690II in TMAX400 and developed in TMAX Developer.

Share with us your favorite Ralph Gibson Look.

raytoei

 

[whitecat]

Nicely done image.

 

[dfoo]

It is a nice interpretation, however, it isn't how I interpreted his prints & shots at all from looking at the images on his site. Here is a blog post I did on the same subject. http://silverprint.posterous.com/shirley-dogs-at-bowring-park-newfoundland-win

 

[gnuyork]

It is a nice interpretation, however, it isn't how I interpreted his prints & shots at all from looking at the images on his site. Here is a blog post I did on the same subject. http://silverprint.posterous.com/shirley-dogs-at-bowring-park-newfoundland-win

Really? I think the OP did a pretty nice job of capturing the feel (at least in tone) of Ralph's style. I think the images in your blog have a bit more mids than what I recall from Ralph's style.

 

[raytoei@gmail.com]

I love this forum. Everybody's right.

Plus-X pulled to 50 and developed for 200 iso in Rodinal in 1+25 for 6mins at 30C. Contrast and Brightness adjusted digitally. Olympus XA.

 

[dfoo]

Really? I think the OP did a pretty nice job of capturing the feel (at least in tone) of Ralph's style. I think the images in your blog have a bit more mids than what I recall from Ralph's style.

It is a fair comment now that I go back and look at his images in the gallery section of his site. However, if you look through the archives you can find a variety of shots which do have more mids.

 

[retnull]

In the original image, I love the grain on the subject's shoulder. That's a look that I've never seen replicated in digital.

 

[raytoei@gmail.com]

One Last Picture....

 

[mfogiel]

You are somewhat confused. He certainly underexposes (exposes x the highlights) and overdevelops (pushes ) the film.
I have done this series of photos with some strong play of light and shadow in mind: used Rollei Retro 100 @EI 200 with a red filter, exposed for sunny 16 and developed in Rodinal @24 deg for 18 minutes 1+50. To increase the effect of grain I shot this on Pen FT.
Here's an example:

You can see the rest of the series here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/59177039@N00/sets/72157624528318189/show/

 

[biakalt]

i really like the deep black you achieved in the first image. i must admit the 3rd one is very R.Gibson-esque. great series!

 

[dfoo]

You are somewhat confused. ...

What he is confused about? I see some confirmation of what he does do, but no explanation about what he does not do...

 

[raytoei@gmail.com]

A quote often attributed to Ralph Gibson is that only a dense negative interests him. He over-exposes (ie. trix400 in 100 ~ 200 iso) and over-develops in Rodinal (iso 400 ~800). Over exposure gives more details while over-development increases contrasts. There is usually a strong light source and shadow background but I don't think he prints the negative as-is without substantial dodging and burning.

That's how I interpret some of his photos.

 

[maclaine]

I've posted this picture before to illustrate other things in various threads, but I think this might be my most "Gibson-esque" image. This was from the first roll of film I developed at home. It's Neopan 1600 developed in HC-100. However, I diluted it wrong and had somewhere around 3-4x the amount of developer necessary in the tank. The negative is certainly very dense! Printing it is actually a bit of a chore, and I still have yet to get a print that I'm as happy with as this scan.

 

[helen.HH]

Hi,

Share with us your favorite Ralph Gibson Look.

raytoei

Just ADORE this shot & processing,..... !!!!

 

[RAZOR]

Great information here...Excellent style Raytoei

 

[nightfly]

Not very Gibsoneque subject matter but:

 

[Jaans]

You are somewhat confused. He certainly underexposes (exposes x the highlights) and overdevelops (pushes ) the film.
I have done this series of photos with some strong play of light and shadow in mind: used Rollei Retro 100 @EI 200 with a red filter, exposed for sunny 16 and developed in Rodinal @24 deg for 18 minutes 1+50. To increase the effect of grain I shot this on Pen FT.
Here's an example:

You can see the rest of the series here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/59177039@N00/sets/72157624528318189/show/

I don't know where you get your information from, but you are just plain wrong. I have read two interviews with Gibson that are freely available on the net - one was from a magazine that focused on darkroom practice where he states that he overexposes his TRI-X at either EI:100 or 200 then overdevelops - if I recall correctly for 11 minutes with Rodinal at 1:25. This is infact greatly overdeveloped as use that time for my TRI-X that is exposed at EI:320 with a dilution of 1:50. There were also pictures of his negatives and it was surprising that he could get any light through them they were so dense.

Also, Gibson only uses TRI-X and Neopan 1600 (now defunct) or Neopan 400 when he is the mood. Any parallels that you have drawn between his work and yours aren't there, because you are using a different film and have retained shadow detail in the above shot whereas he has practically zero shadow detail in most of his photos. Also, I do recall reading that he doesn't use red filters - he looks for strongly lit scenes to provide the contrast, then amps it with developing.

As you went to the trouble of drawing comparisons, it must be said that the OP has certainly captured the mood of Gibson's style more with the photo that he provided compared to yours.

 

[icamp]

As posted by Jaans..this makes perfect sense to me.Gibson has overexposed keeping his detail in the upper part of the curve towards the shoulder( look at film characteristic curve),thats why he has no shadow detail,also gives more density which increases the grain.

 

[leicashot]

I've posted this picture before to illustrate other things in various threads, but I think this might be my most "Gibson-esque" image. This was from the first roll of film I developed at home. It's Neopan 1600 developed in HC-100. However, I diluted it wrong and had somewhere around 3-4x the amount of developer necessary in the tank. The negative is certainly very dense! Printing it is actually a bit of a chore, and I still have yet to get a print that I'm as happy with as this scan.

Fantastic picture. I like the composition and perspective of the low angle. Well done!

 

[Spider67]

I've posted this picture before to illustrate other things in various threads, but I think this might be my most "Gibson-esque" image. This was from the first roll of film I developed at home. It's Neopan 1600 developed in HC-100. However, I diluted it wrong and had somewhere around 3-4x the amount of developer necessary in the tank. The negative is certainly very dense! Printing it is actually a bit of a chore, and I still have yet to get a print that I'm as happy with as this scan.

Simply great. Kudos for a mangnificent picture