Snow flurries and sunshine are alternating today as a storm passes through the valley. There's only a slight chance (so far) that a snow day will keep anyone home tomorrow—the temperature is too warm for snow to stick. Still, the light dusting does rekindle memories from past winters, of snow shovels, tire chains, and wood stoves, and an entire week of school lost to an unexpected storm.
As I was reminiscing about the weather my thoughts wandered to photography, to what I was doing during those times, and though there are prominent black holes in that history this is what came to mind.
I've mentioned in other posts that my first rolls of film, taken forty-odd years ago, were black and white. Kodak's Plus-X mostly, finer-grained Panatomic-X later on when I affected some Zone System artiness. It was the cheap way to practice—I didn't give a thought to color those first couple of years.
When Kodachrome became my film-of-choice in the mid-'70s I still shot B&W when I freelanced for a local magazine. The publisher was a quirky guy whose well-to-do mother kept the thin bimonthly (and him) afloat, and I made enough money to buy a new camera body, though pay (like the assignments) was erratic. I enjoyed feeling journalistic, though, and the best part of the deal was, I shot what I wanted—their budget was non-existent tight, stories were loose, the art director was the publisher's girlfriend, she liked my pictures, and it was fun while it lasted.
That has been my only sustained experience working in a wet darkroom. I lived in a townhouse then, where my bedroom featured a spacious closet plus extra space inside that—it was a little room all its own. It was also mildly claustrophobic and exactly the dimensions required for a Beseler 23C enlarger and yours truly. My workflow was simple: I'd expose a dozen sheets of paper, stow them in a light-tight processing drum, and escape through a wall of clothes to the bathroom, where the developer/stop bath/fixer trays waited on the counter. Of necessity I became adept at getting everything right the first time.
Although it's been decades since I've printed from negatives, an important technique from that technology lives on in today's digital darkroom. (There's a term sure to boil a film purist's blood—especially as there's nothing dark about it. Adobe Systems got it right when they introduced Lightroom for digital editing.) I've rediscovered its importance recently—it's still called Burning and Dodging, except now you don't need quick reflexes—or a short piece of wire—to use it. (Back in the day, fast hands and small bits of paper taped to a wire were the tools used to alter light striking the enlarging paper. Sounds almost prehistoric, doesn't it?)
Digital RAW files are often called digital negatives because, like their film counterparts, they require processing to bring out the best attributes of the photo. They need to be manipulated. And though seeming magic can be accomplished within Photoshop, using specialized Actions or third-party plug-ins, there's still (thankfully) a place for simple adjustments like burning and dodging. The control over what's lightened or darkened, however, is beyond anything film photographers dreamt of. Tiny areas of an image can be magnified and worked to perfection with sizable brushes. The amount of dodging or burning can be set in 1% increments (no guessing). The effects can be targeted to the shadows, mid-tones, or highlights. And since it's digital, if you don't like the look—simply go back a step or two and try again. I don't miss a wet garbage can, either.
The shot I've included here, of an old vice in the shop at Thompson's Mills, is nearly monochromatic on its own—I chose to leave it in color because of the subtle blue tones. The early afternoon side lighting comes from a window to the left. The image is a combination of 15 separate shots—the focus point was moved slightly in each before Helicon Focus rendered the final version (a small aperture wouldn't have given the depth-of-field I desired in this instance, especially at a focal length of 116mm). After adjustments during shooting and post-processing in Photoshop, I did one final thing to the picture, dodging the highlights (at a 10% setting) to give it an edge I thought it lacked.
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