My photographs rarely represent objective reality, but they represent my vision, my artistic interpretation of the scene. In this article, I’ll talk about why I made a particular photo, what was done in camera, and then what I did in the darkroom to realize the finished image – or at least the image as it is now. . Realizing that I rarely reach a final conclusion on a photograph, especially when I’m working on it in a wet, traditional darkroom, everything remains a “work in progress”.
original negative
Here is a scan of the original negative. There are some problems with this. As you’ll see, it’s a flat image, which means the image has a low contrast level, which is purposeful. I always like to start with a very low-contrast original. Next, there is overall fogging of the negative from some source – I later discovered that my camera’s bellows had a pinhole leak, which was made worse when the bellows was fully (or very) extended. This proved to be the source of low-level fogging. However, with tonal separation the detail that was created in the darkest shadows has been carried over to the brightest highlights, so the negative is very printable.
The original exposure of the photo, “Forest above McDonald Creek” was made while I was in Glacier National Park, Montana in September 2018. When we left for Kalispell, Montana, a large portion of Glacier National Park was closed due to fires that were burning out of control. The worst fire occurred near McDonald Creek on the western edge of the park. Parts of the lower Going-to-the-Sun Road were accessible, but not Logan Pass and eastern parts of the park. When Going-to-the-Sun Road opened, I got full access to McDonald Creek.
On the third or fourth morning, just before sunrise, while we were there, I parked my truck and tried to walk along McDonald Creek. I say “attempt” because it is a very difficult and in many places impossible journey. This is hard because there are many places that would require house-sized rocks or the ability to walk on water, which I don’t have.
When I finally arrived at this location, I began to recognize patterns that could lead to a rewarding photo. As I walked back up the embankment, the pattern of the water and its flow around the rocks in front of me began to make sense, and I was able to create what I thought was a good composition incorporating the foreground rocks and the creek (this is it). A raging river actually, but they call it a drain, so who am I to argue?) and deep forest on the other side of the drain.
proper evidence
This is a contact print, or proper proof, of the original negative. Again, as you can see, it has very little to do with contrast. I’m rarely interested in finding a proper proof that’s beautiful. I want one that is low in contrast and will tell me if I have printable detail in the shadow areas as well as good separation of tones in the highlight areas. Looking at this “proof print”, details in all but the darkest areas in the middle-right area of the print can be easily seen. This simple exercise, creating a proper proof, can give a lot of information as well as the ability to begin the process of deciding what the finished print will be and the first step in the actual development of the “final” image.
to show or not to show
For me, the next step in this process would be to determine what I think the cropping of the image will be. I will work to figure out what I will include in the finished printing of the image. My intention is to be very ruthless at this point, cutting out anything that I feel will have little or no consequence or that would actually detract from the final visual statement. Ideally, I would do this in camera at the time of the actual exposure, but sometimes it is extremely difficult or even impossible to get an accurate crop in camera. In this case, I was as close as I could get to my subject without using a very low camera angle or even standing in fast-moving, icy-cold water. Neither scenario was appealing to me at this point. I would have also liked to use a longer focal length lens, but this would have removed material that was important to my composition. It should be remembered that large format view cameras do not have zoom lenses, so you choose the lens that will give you more than you want and then cut off the excess. So, I made a compromise I felt I could live with in the long run.
When cropping an image, I look for things on the edges of the image to get rid of and also look for things that don’t contribute to what I want my final visual statement to be.
Determining Contrast
The next step for me is to start determining what is the best exposure time for the image and determine what level of contrast I like. In this case, my basic exposure was four segments at four seconds each, with my total contrast set to ½, or .5 contrast, followed by two segments of four seconds each, with my total contrast set to 5. Incidentally, I rarely print at a set contrast like #2 or #3 contrast. What has worked best for me is to expose the paper to a low contrast filter like a #0 or #1 filter, followed by exposure with a very high contrast or hard filter like #5. Doing this allows me to control overall and local contrast to a very precise extent. The timing of each contrast filter is determined by a testing procedure I have devised over many years of working in the darkroom.
In this step I will also test how light or how dark I want the printed image to be. In this step I will do what is called a “step wedge” print, and by using the contrast filter I think I would like to use, I will find the minimum time it takes to print details in the highlight areas of the image. , That will be my base print time. My objective in this step is to determine what combination of exposure and contrast grade will give me both great highlights and shadow areas that the light appears to emanate from.
retouching print
What I want to do next is find areas of the print that may need to reduce the value and also find areas that may need to either increase or decrease the local contrast.
The purpose of this step is to draw attention to the light patterns in the water by increasing local contrast in the water while leaving the wooded area alone so that the shadows remain bright.
There are many more steps that will be taken to arrive at a happy iteration for me, and over time, those steps will change as my vision is constantly changing and I hope will improve with experience and maturity.
Here’s an illustration of what I had in mind when I did the initial demo and then started to see where the finished image could take me. I try to have an idea in the field of what I want, but then when the film is processed, and I bring it to the printing process, I try to make what I see in the field have less of an impact on me. Don’t put it. Often when I expose film the preconceived notion of what I thought I wanted goes out the window, and I end up with a print that is actually quite different from what I imagined in that area. I usually like that repetition better. Its printing will evolve over time, and what I’m doing with it now will undoubtedly look very different when I print the negative again a year or five years from now. As you can see, this is not a one-time proposal. As my vision and technique changes, the actual rendering of the image can and will change. This is one of the beauties of the artistic process.
