How Long for a 'Fine Print'?

Greetings,

I wonder how many hours, days or weeks it can take to produce a so-called 'fine print' (Ansel Adams definition). I usually spend 3-5 hours to get it right but even then, it may not be quite perfect. In the hands of an acomplished printer, how long does it usually take to get from the first draft print to the final print (the so-called fine print). I realize that it is dependent on how close the straight print is to the final print. Some examples would be quite helpful. Thanks and Happy Holidays. KB

what is "right"

<p>

Kevin

well, after 30 years, it takes about 10 minutes. i used to spend

hours screwing around with the intricacies of printing very sublte

variations but after doing a million prints, you get to where you can

look at a negative and just know what to do. it's pretty hard to

beat experience...

This is so dependent on many variables. First of all, when I make a

new negative, I need to make a straight 8x10 of it to "live " with for

awhile. I don't spend a great deal of time doing this print (usually

on RC paper) but it may take days or weeks before I actually tackle it

for real. Then, I start by making an 11x14 on fiber paper. By now,

I've had a good chance to think about what needs to be done to make

this into the final product. Sometimes, a negative is a good

candiditate for some kind of masking or an alternative paper or some

other material or technique. Even after I've taken great pains and

maybe a couple of hours to arrive at what I want, when I mount it and

show it to other photogrpaher friends of mine, I may hear comments or

suggestions or just observe reactions that lead to revising the way I

print it. I may even temporarily abandon it and go back and revise it

months later when I'm certain I know what I want. I think it's a

mistake to try and force the fishined product in one session or to

attempt doing so right after you've made the negative. The other thing

to remember is that as you get to be better at printing, negatives you

had trouble with a year or two ago, may now be printable to a higher

standard, given your improved skill.

Well I figured out that I can get a fine print when I finall get into

the darkroom strat exposing and splashing around and can say " Fine

that's printed"

<p>

the actual definition f a fine print depends on the subject the

negative nad your own taste. Some negs are esy to print and others

darn near drive you nuts. Then you go back and look at your own work

years lter and say ,"that ain't nothing" .

Keith: I can usually get a print I like in about four tries, starting

from scratch. I start with a test strip of at least half a sheet of

8x10, get the overall exposure time, then make a full 8x10 work

print. From the work print I can decide what the print needs, and by

referring back to the test strip I can determine the seconds of

burning in needed to get me in the ball park. Then I make that print

and see what fine tuning needs to be done. The fourth print is

usually pretty close. It takes longer when changes in contrast are

called for. Also, I will look at the print after it dries to see if

it dried down too much, and make another print if needed. The key for

me is to standardize processing times, keep the developer fresh and

the familiarity with my own setup and neg developing. Even then, I

may go back a week later, look at the print, and wonder why I didn't

see something that needs fixing. As stated earlier, experience and

familiarity with your stuff speeds up the process. There just ain't

no easy way if you are gonna make prints you are proud of.

<p>

Merry Christmas,

It depends on the negative.When doing his last prints of the

"Moonrise over Hernandez, New Mexico" negative I recall reading

that Ansel Adams and his assistant would set up the enlarger

the day before and come back for a full day of printing, to a series

of finished prints that met his standards which included being

free of surface defects, processing marks, etc.

The time varies with the negative, when I print & how I feel at the

time. Some prints are almost identical from session to session.

Others I interpret differently as time goes on or in trying to see

just how I want it to look. At times it is within 3 sheets of paper,

give or take a bit of planned post print manipulation. Other times it

is longer and at times it is a few sheets of paper, fix-rinse-tone-

rinse-mount-mat-frame & look for awhile before deciding if I like it

enough to go ahead & do a few finished prints. A bit slow this way

but sometimes after looking I throw it out & start all over while

other times it is a matter of tweaking for final presentation. Even

going back to duplicate what I already did as living with it a bit

tells me I like it as I printed it.

<p>

One surprise through the years came with moving up in film formats.

The idea of shoot & contact print the perfect image just doesn't work

for me too often. Small manipulations on the print in dodging/burning

as well as bleaching & intensifying from neg to print take time. Even

when printing on Azo with 60 second developing times it can take more

time than expected. I think part of the time factor is in knowing

this is the final image... the contact. Limiting yourself this way

makes for less work in some ways but forces more concentration in

others. In the end I prefer contact printing. The sharpness & clarity

is there in a way enlarging can't give me. Both have their advantages

& both their own path to a final 'fine print'. All I really know is

that when I see a body of work that is consistent in vision and high

quality I know the photographer worked to get it that way. Anyone can

get lucky every now & then but to do it on a regular basis, getting

quality every step of the way, is difficult. My hat is off to all

those who make the effort & learn to do it.

Keith,

<p>

If you follow the method I describe in my article , "On Printing--and

why there is no such thing as a difficult negative to print" (the

article can be found on our web site [www.michaelandpaula.com] under

"Writings"), you should never have to spend more than an hour or two at

the most making the best print your negative can yield. Let me know if

you try it and find otherwise. This method will work whether you are

contact printing or enlarging.

<p>

Michael A. Smith

As others have said, it depends. I've attended all of John Sexton's

darkroom workshops and have generally followed the methods learned

there when I'm enarging. His "system" involves first making as good a

straight print as possible, which may take an hour or two, then

starting in with dodging, burning, flashing, masking, whatever seems

necessary. He spends a lot of time and effort, I'd guess on average

at least half a day probably more, the first time a negative is

printed. He advocates not assuming you'll make the final vesion the

first time a negative is printed but instead doing the best you can

do the first time around and then living with it for a while. Of

course once a final version is decided upon, things go much quicker

for copies. I think the guy who did a lot of Ansel Adams printing

after his death said he got to where he could print "Moonrise" in a

couple minutes. All of this assumes you're enlarging. I contact print

8x10 negatives occasionally and that's much faster since the burning,

dodging, etc. is usually far less (for me at least) when contact

printing on Azo paper.

Brian,

<p>

I'm curious about something. I assume that John Sexton uses the zone

System to calculate exposure and development of his negatives. And that

his determination of exposure and development is a function of how he

previsualizes the final print. That being the case, why would it take

so long to get a proper straight print, and then so many more hours to

dodge, burn, mask, etc. to get a proper print? And then, since the

print was previsualized and supposedly exposed and developed properly,

why would he first have to live with it for some period of time before

figuring out how he wants to print it? That just doesn't make sense to

me.

<p>

Michael A. Smith

Interesting question about previsualization and the zone system. As

much as I try to previsualize, I find that the image evolves as I

work with it. I usually shoot full frame, for instance, but I might

change my mind later, and the same goes for the placement of tones.

Often I`ll make a work print just to see how it "hangs" for a while.

Then if its worth the trouble, I`ll spend the necessary time on a

finished print.

Paula and I use the zone system only very loosely (developing negatives

by inspection negates the rigid standards arrived at by extensive zone

system testing) and we previsualize the final print, in its tonal

makeup only in general terms--we have more of a general feeling of what

we want rather than anything absolutely precise. And yet we are usually

able to make final prints of just about any negative in about an hour.

This is due not only to our method of printing, though surely that

helps, but to our understanding of what makes a fine print and what the

print should look like. Hoping you will find the writing below to be

helpful.

<p>

Long ago I was asked by a museum to write a statement for a catalog of

their collection. They specifically asked something like "What is your

goal when you make a photograph"? After attempts at several paragraph-

long answers, I trashed them all and wrote, "I'm just trying to make

the best pictures I can." By extension, when printng, I am just trying

to make the best print I can. That is a very different approach than

trying to recreate what I felt when I was at the scene photographing. I

have written about this before and will take the liberty to quote

myself.

<p>

"Although it is the reality of the subject before you that captures

your attention, the feeling one has while photographing is determined

by myriad factors. The physical reality before you�the very real three-

dimensional space, the light, the colors, the sounds, the smells, the

weather�is of course a major factor. Of the others, some are more or

less stable, such as one�s world view and the general state of one�s

psyche and health. Other factors are more fleeting, such as the time

you have available (it is hard to be calm and contemplative when

rushed, whether by quickly changing light or the need to be somewhere

else), the other people who may be present, your dreams from the night

before, or a conversation you may have just had. All of these factors

contribute to determining your mood, which in turn may affect how you

feel about what is before you.

<p>

Realizing the absolute impossibility of trying to create for others and

to recreate for myself, in a two-dimensional black and white

photograph, the feeling of the multi-faceted experience of having been

at the scene photographed, my goal when making prints is simply to try

to make the best print I can, and thereby to provide, both for myself

and for the viewer, a new experience�one of the photograph itself.

As an artist, I am responsible for every square millimeter of the

print, in the same way that a composer is responsible for every note,

or a poet is responsible for every word. I try to make my prints so

that all parts are of equal importance and do not feel they are

successful if the viewer�s eyes are not somehow involuntarily compelled

to navigate to every part. Therefore, the dodging and burning-in I do

is not to make elements stand out, but to have them cohere into a

unity." End of quote.

<p>

In order to look at the print as a unity when one is printing in the

darkroom it is essential that you place a large viewing board--a piece

of glass or plexiglas--and a proper viewing light (one that matches

normal viewing light of finished prints) behind the fixer tray and that

you have the space to step back about seven or eight feet from the

print. Then you can look at it as a whole and not get hung up in each

little part (You do that also, when you look at the print closely. Most

people do look at their prints very closely; they often don't step back

far enough to look at them impersonally as a whole.) Looking on them

impersonally helps, too. When looking at your prints at this time,

forget, or try to forget that they are yours. Your only concern should

be to make the best print you can. If it is in accord with what you

felt at the time you exposed the negative, that's fine; if not, that's

fine, too. Your photographs are not providing the viewer (yourself or

others) with an experience of the scene, but with an experience of the

photograph.

<p>

Good luck to all in being able to print more decisively so that you can

spend less time per print in the darkroom and more time out there

exposing new negatives.

<p>

The zone system is great for analyzing what is before you and

determining what might be done with proper filtration, exposure and

development to arrive at a negative that will come closer to achieve

the result you feel you want at that moment. The problems are: not

everything can be changed by applying zone system technique and when

viewing the print in one's darkroom, one is deprived of exactly those

real life influences that may have propmted the initial decisions in

the first place. Here is where the license to alter the image further

can impel the artist to apply some darkroom techiniques such as

masking, selective toning of the negative, dodging, burning, bleaching,

etc. to see if it's possible to further improve the print. If we were

to simply stop at the point of accepting the negative as is and allow

ourselves just so much time to do all the dodging and burning we think

might help, I suspect many prints would never see the light of day and

others would fall far short of everything they could be.

<p>

Michael, I read your article on printing and I don't recall reading a

sentence that deals with fitting the the negative to the proper

contrast grade of paper! Many excellent printers feel this is perhaps

the most important step in making a fine print. Is this something you

accidentally ommitted, does not apply to contact printing with AZO or

do you not feel it's that important?

Robert and others,

<p>

Michael, I read your article on printing and I don't recall reading a

sentence that deals with fitting the negative to the proper contrast

grade of paper! Many excellent printers feel this is perhaps the most

important step in making a fine print. Is this something you

accidentally omitted, does not apply to contact printing with AZO or do

you not feel it's that important?

<p>

Fitting the negative to the proper grade of paper is of absolute and

central importance--so much so that I take it for granted that everyone

does this before they go further. It's the first step.

<p>

Well, actually it is the second step. The first step is to make what we

call a "proof"--a quick print on Grade 2 (or for some on Grade 1)

paper. Use these grades regardless of the grade you think will be

needed for the final print. This print should have full detail in the

highlights and full detail in all of the dark areas. Will this print be

gray--too gray? In all likelihood it will. But now you should have full

information of what is on the negative. The degree of grayness will

almost invariably tell you what grade of paper the negative should be

printed on. If the proof is very flat--grade 4 will be needed and so

on. It is important that you always make these proofs on the same grade

of paper.

<p>

When I first started doing this many years ago I had come back from a

long trip and had over 600 negatives to print. I tried to match the

grade of paper used in the proofs to the negatives. Some of the proofs

were extremely contrasty. As I had made them all in one day (they were

indeed quick proofs) by looking at the proofs I had no recollection of

the degree of contrast of each negative. Years later, when I finally

got around to printing some of these negatives I found, much to my

surprise, that some of the contrastiest proofs--ones that I had avoided

printing because of that--were from quite flat negatives that had been

proofed on Grade 4 paper. In general when I looked at these proofs I

was given no clue as to the proper grade to print on.

<p>

But when all the proofs are on the same grade of paper--and you compare

them to each other--the proper grade of paper is usually immediately

evident. I'd say that on only about one out of 20 prints I try to print

on one grade but have to switch to another--just barely, usually, but

enough to make the switch. And that information I get from the proofs,

and also from looking quickly at the negative on a light table, which I

built into the darkroom.

Let me first say that I like Michael's, and Paula's, images very much.

But I also have seen pretty much straight prints from them both. Not

much change in what was there to begin with. The prints represent the

tonalities that existed in the scene withoput much change in printing.

I may be wrong, and please reply and set me straight if this

assumption is wrong, but after looking at a whole lot of your prints

Micheal, I think I understand your puzzlement of why Sexton takes

longer to make a final print than you do. Where Michaels prints are

fairly literal interpretations of the scene as it was, Sexton's prints

are non literal, heavily manipulated interpretations of the tonalities

that existed in the original scene. Having seen him make prints from

new negatives, and having seen the sites he has photographed, the

prints of these scenes are heavily changed. And this is even more

so in his recent images in his book "Places of Power". The tonalities

of the scene are changed. He uses the zone system to get a negative

that will give him the information he needs to then proceed to develop

the print as he wants it to be and not how it really appeared. If you

saw some of the ruins in person he has photographed, and then looked

at the prints that have been made of these ruins, you would see the

differences he makes through the printing controls he employees to get

the print and feeling he is after. The original scene and it's

appearance in the print are two very different things. I think this is

where Robert is coming from. Each printer has their own interpretation

of a scene and all are as valid as the other. If we were all the same

it would get boring quickly. I appreciate Michael's methods and how he

arrives at his prints. But it is not the only method in producing a

print. And I am glad of that. Keep em coming Michael. I hope to

see you at PhotoLA 2002. Or at least a lot more prints. James

I would imagine Sexton is more concerned with making the "expressive"

print, rather than the "correct" print.

Bigmac and others,

<p>

That's an interesting point. However, since you weren't with us at the

scene photographed you cannot see the extent to which we have exposed

and developed the negative to change the tonalities. Sometimes our

prints have the same tonalities as the scene we photographed and

sometimes they are quite different. The way we expose and develop or

negatives often changes the tonalities significantly. There is a

particular tonal look I like to my prints--the major influence on my

printing was old engravings and I expose and develop accordingly.

<p>

That being said, there are a number of interesting issues that your

comments call up. When either Paula or I expose a negative we are

seeing not only the shapes and forms and objects; we are also seeing

the tonal relationships and it is that we are responding to as much as

anything else. (I have often said that I am not photographing things

but am photographing relationships.) That being the case, there is no

need to do excessive manipulation to get the print that we feel is the

most expressive print. From the teaching we have done, and from the

many photographers we know, we have found that tonal relationships

between each and every thing in the photograph are something often

overlooked when photographers are exposing their negatives--so they

need to do extensive manipulation later to get what they want.

<p>

But there is a bigger and more interesting question your comment calls

up as well--it has to do ones influences and one's world's view. Both

Paula and I happened, as it turned out, to have had Edward Weston's

photographs as our first influence in photography. In fact, it was

seeing Weston's work that got us both making photographs in the first

place, albeit over 20 years apart. Weston printed pretty much as we do-

-some dodging and burning to balance the print, but not anything else.

Sexton's main influence was Ansel Adams. Adams often manipulated his

prints and changed the tonalities significantly to get an "expressive"

print.

<p>

So what is the essential difference between Weston and Adams in this

regard? Weston talked about not wanting to impose himself on nature,

talked about the straightforward recognition of himself in the world.

He said that what he was photographing was, "the me of universal

rhythms." Adams, on the other hand, had a quite different approach: he

thought nothing of changing tonal relationships to get what he felt--

the tonal relationships already existing in the world weren't enough

for him. Either that or he did not see them in the most expressive way.

<p>

I have never had much of an interest in Adams or in his approach. It

always seemed to me to be too much "look at me." Weston's, to my way of

thinking, more respectful approach, always has had strong appeal. For

myself I have put it this way, "The world has more to teach me than I

have to teach it." I hope to always learn and to grow, both as an

individual and as a photographer. I feel that to impose myself on the

world (in the manner of manipulating my prints to make them more

"expressive") would not teach me anything, it would simply confirm what

I know. But to discover, already existing in the world, relationships

that imply the universal without my having to interfere--from that I

learn a great deal.

<p>

I certainly hope my photographs, my prints, are expressive, as Weston's

surely are. It is just that the expression comes from a different place

than does the expression in Adams's and Sexton's photographs. There is

no right or wrong in this. It ultimately is a question of who one is.

<p>

I don't believe that it has been publicly posted, but since you

mentioned it I will make an announcement: Paula and I will be at Photo

LA from January 17-20. We, as Lodima Press, our publishing company have

a booth there. We invite all participants on this list to visit us

there and see our prints first hand. If you come, please introduce

yourselves--it would be nice to put faces to the names.