The Artistry Formerly Known as Prints
Yesterday at 4PM, I followed a hashtag on Twitter, #printchat. It was basically a bunch of tweets discussing the printing industry amongst people who you could call industry insiders. The main subject of conversation was drupa, a recently completed conference and trade show dedicated to advances in the printing industry. It’s held every four years in Düsseldorf, Germany, and it’s goddamn massive. I didn’t even hear about it until this year, but as Wikipedia says, “390,044 visitors attended drupa in 2008, and 1,953 exhibitors from 54 countries covered a total of 17.9 hectares of space.” That’s insane. More noteworthy, it’s astounding that such a big event is dedicated to an industry that I would bet the average person would suspect is on the decline.
A lot of people like to talk about how more pictures have been taken lately. And we’re not talking about a simple percentage increase, either. More pictures get taken every two minutes than were taken in the entirety of the 19th century. (This is, of course, on average. Actually, do yourself a favor and read Jonathan Good’s original article here.)
One of the things Mr. Good’s article touches on is the increasing rarity of the printed image. This is definitely true as a percentage—that is, of all photographs taken, the percentage that are being printed is in sharp decline. But that could be true even if the rate of image printing is increasing. But what I imagine (with no evidence apart from my own to back it up) is that fewer and fewer photographs are being printed to paper. When I was a kid and you got film back from the lab, you got a copy of every frame as a glossy 4×6 print. And most of the time they stayed that way: slightly curled prints from a machine in a photo lab branded envelope in a shoebox in the closet.
Now that I consider myself a photographer (an amateur still, but working towards being a semi-pro… let’s talk if you want to buy my work), I’m visualizing prints a whole new way. You shouldn’t print everything, and if you do, those prints should be a bit bigger. Personally, my ideal size is an 8″ by 10″ print, which strikes the perfect balance between decorative artwork and a requirement for intimate examination. I know a few photographers who prefer shooting large format and contact printing their 4×5 negatives to force viewers to get in close to examine the photographs. I want to try this soon. Because on a computer or iPad, you zoom in. With a print on a wall, you bring your face in to really look at a print.
Anyway, even though you should only print a small percentage of what you shoot, the average person prints relatively nothing. How many prints of your photographs do you have, and how many digital files (from a camera or from a film scan) occupy your hard drive?
Ansel Adams’ well-known book The Negative (one of the best instructional photography books ever) was the second in a trilogy of The Camera, The Negative, and The Print. Unlike the first two, I’ve never seen the latter on the shelves of a bookstore. It’s all about making a traditional print – using silver gelatin photographic paper with a negative in an enlarger to make a positive image. (The paper is a negative-producing material, so projection of a negative film image will result in a positive print.) I’ve made a series of YouTube videos (crappy ones, I must say) that give an overview of darkroom printing.
However – and this is the point that I originally wanted to make when I thought of writing this blog post – is that darkroom printing isn’t a simple “there, I did it” process. Or at least, it doesn’t have to be (you can choose to make “straight prints” if you choose to.) There’s an artistic opportunity there that you can choose to work in. From the choice of your paper and developer to the dodging and burning you apply to specific areas of the print, there are tons of ways to affect the final print. Elements like composition and focus are present in the negative, but things like tonality and contrast are only affected by how you print the image (even if you never choose to print it).
Ansel Adams’ most famous photograph, Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico, exists in a variety of different forms (see below). This is because Adams went back to the darkroom with the original negative and reinterpreted the final print a number of different ways throughout his life. So even though he was working from the same original negative, each print was, in its own way, unique.
Example #1
Example #2
I was recently watching a documentary about the great Japanese street photographer Daido Moriyama, and I learned that a great deal of what you see is not just due to the camera, but how he chose to print the photographs in the darkroom. For example, one of the interviewees was recalling how they were trying to recreate a particular print of Moriyama’s, and the lab had to give up because it was too difficult to recreate. Indeed, even Moriyama couldn’t recreate his original print. What was the epitome of a reproducible medium had become a one-of-a-kind.
An example of a Daido Moriyama print
I hope this helps you to begin to appreciate the value of a printed photograph, as well as the opportunities that exist in making a print. That photographic printing is such an important art is such a personal revelation to me over the past year or so that I’m now planning on a photo book that will feature scans of finished darkroom prints instead of scanned negatives. With that change, I’m not just showing you where and when I held a camera. You’re seeing the exact image I wanted you to see.
If you have a darkroom, go in there and make some prints! If not, at least send your scans off to be printed. I’ll even forgive you for dodging and burning in Photoshop. Just as long as you have something you can hold in your hand and hold up to your face, because whether you know it or not, your brain is getting tired of looking at pixels. And hey, there’s a reason that drupa is such a big deal – printed material matters.
Simple Tips for Developing Color Film At Home
A number of film shooters know that the best way to develop black and white film is to do it yourself at home. You save so much money, you’re in full control of your development, and you (hopefully) have a bit more fun than you would otherwise. I’ve developed tons of rolls of my own film and I still get a bit giddy whenever I’m pulling the reel out of the tank and getting my first glimpse at the negatives. Honestly, why would you ever want to let someone at a lab develop your film for you?
Color film is quite different. The processes are all standardized, so it doesn’t matter where you take it, and labs offer color film development very inexpensively. While black and white film development costs mere pennies at home, sometimes the cost and longevity of C-41 and E-6 kits can leave you wondering whether you’d be better off sending the film out. After all, a place like Sharp Photo and Portrait will charge you less than two dollars to develop a roll of film, and if you want, you can even pay them to scan the roll, which can save you time and effort at home.
But in the end, you can end up saving money (especially on E-6) if you’re willing to get the color chemistry yourself and change your methods of developing slightly. You’ll also have mastered a new aspect of your craft, and you might even enjoy the process. Rather than walk you through every step to get you started, though, I will offer some simple tips to keep in mind when developing either C-41 or E-6 film so you’ll be less likely to screw up, and ultimately more likely to stick with it if you make a mistake.
1. Save that chemistry!
You might be used to dealing with as little as one storage bottle for your black and white fixer. If you use the Unicolor C-41 kit or the Arista E-6 kit, then be prepared to store three different chemicals for each chemical process. Opaque plastic bottles work well, but you don’t need to invest in the fancy accordion-style bottles. The 1-liter kits, for example, fit quite well in Delta Datatainer quart-size bottles, which you can squeeze lightly on the sides to get all the air out. All the chemicals in these processes are able to be reused for quite a few rolls—maybe 20 or even more—to the point where the investment in the kit will have paid for itself.
And since you’ll be keeping the chemicals for quite some time, go ahead and pay the extra 89 cents to get some distilled water for mixing. You don’t want any tap water impurities to end up ruining your chemicals prematurely.
2. Get ready to warm things up.
As you may know, C-41 and E-6 take place at elevated temperatures. My C-41 kit needs a developer temperature of 102ºF, and E-6 needs 105ºF (That’s about 39 and 40.5 on the Celsius scale, respectively.) The temperatures don’t have to be spot on but drift more than a few degrees in either direction during the development stages, and you might get color shifts.
So, I would recommend that you get a soda cooler that will hold up to all three chemical storage bottles. As long as you have access to tap water that’s hotter than the temperature you’ll need, you can use it to warm up the chemicals. The soda cooler (such as a Coleman) will keep the hot water insulated and make sure most of the heat transfers to your chemicals and not the air in the room.
On that note, you’ll ideally want two thermometers: one for the hot water bath, and one for the first developer bottle. Make sure that the hot water stays above the target temperature. If it doesn’t dump the water and replace it with warmer water. Once the developer thermometer reads the target temperature, you’re ready to start developing.
Personally, I try to get the water coming from my sink faucet to right around the target developer, then I fill my sink with a water bath. When I’m not agitating my tank, I’ll put it in this warm water bath to ensure that heat isn’t lost too quickly. And I’ll use my plastic tanks, not my steel ones, because plastics are a bit better at keeping the developer insulated.
As you can see, though, you don’t need a high-tech setup with a bunch of heating elements and super-tight control of your temperature. A simple, cost-effective approach will work just fine.
Developed in Unicolor C-41 Kit
3. Read the instructions.
Sounds elementary, but the instructions that come with these kits are really helpful when it comes to developing. Once you read through the process, you may want to write down the whole process on a “cheat sheet” that you keep handy while developing. Maybe even laminate it to protect it against water damage. Nothing is worse than forgetting, for example, that you were supposed to wash the film in between the two developer steps of the E-6 process, or that the Blix is the second chemical step in C-41, not the third.
While we’re on that note, I would suggest labelling your chemical bottles thoroughly. For example, don’t just put “Developer” on the first bottle of your C-41 kit. Also label it “C-41 #1.” Put the appropriate time the chemical will be in the tank, and what temperature it’s supposed to be. Sometimes the individual steps can be over before you know it, so take as many steps as you can to prevent thoughtless errors. My first batch of chemistry was ruined, for example, after I started pouring stabilizer into the blix bottle.
If all this sounds too complicated, remember…
4. Don’t be intimidated.
Apart from having to warm up the chemicals beforehand, there’s nothing more difficult about C-41 development, or even E-6. The basic skills of pouring chemicals and agitating the tank are all the same. Many people are needlessly intimidated for a variety of reasons. Maybe they think the temperatures have to be accurate within a single degree, or that the times have to be accurate to within two seconds. In fact, in my experiences, color developing is pretty forgiving if you treat everything with the same careful deliberation that you give your black and white development.
For whatever reason, E-6 seems to have more of a stigma of intimidation than C-41, despite being just as easy to do. Maybe it’s because the cost of the film stock and chemistry are slightly higher, or that you have to gradually add additional time to your first developer. But either one should be easy enough to do. If you feel the need for a confidence-builder, some cheap drugstore film makes for a nice way to get used to C-41 development.
5. Know what you will get in the end.
Be aware that when color film comes out of the tank, it won’t look quite right. When color negative film is hung to dry, it may look a little “milky,” like black and white film that has been improperly fixed. Similarly, color transparency film that I’ve developed has appeared milky blue on one side and milky yellow on the other side. Let the film dry overnight (or at least a few hours) before passing judgement on the success of your development session.
Developed in Arista E-6 Kit
In closing, let me know via comments if you found this encouraging, or if you have more questions about developing your color film at home. I could end up editing this post if need be.
Weird Film Adventures
Alright, first a little back story in case you haven’t been following along (or if I haven’t been making sufficiently detailed updates):
Since I would like to explore the world of carbon printing—and other alternative processes of printing—I need negatives that are going to be the size of the final print. Virtually all alternative processes require UV light and contact printing. There are traditionally three ways to do this:
- Shoot on 8×10 or ultra large format film. Talk to Mat Marrash if you’d like to learn more, but have your bank statements handy. It ain’t cheap.
- Scan your film (or if you shoot digital, open up your file) and make an inkjet print to transparency material.
- Enlarge to a 8×10 or larger piece of film (which will produce a positive transparency), then contact print that to make a negative.
What most people nowadays seem to be doing is number 2—printing on a professional printer and making “digital negatives.” There are a few reasons why this is a poor option for me. First off, you really need to have a pro printer, whereas I have an all-in-one HP. Apparently Epson is the way to go for anything serious, because Epson inks are the best for blocking UV light. (Remember that UV light is the only light we’re interested in for the purposes of alternative processes.) Furthermore, they have like seven or eight different inks, and you can calibrate your system to find an ink combination that will give you just the right contrast and tonal scale.
I could just ignore all this and try making digital negatives with my HP printer, but even then, the price of ink is insane. And I’ve never been good at printing out images to my printer – something always seems to go wrong and I waste far more material getting a print of a digital image using my own printer than if I were to use a service such as Mpix. Unfortunately, I haven’t found a source for “farming out” my digital negatives to some other 3rd party in the same way, and I doubt I will unless alternative process printing takes off in a huge way. Even then, there’s probably a lot of time I’m going to have to spend in Photoshop (ugh) to prepare a scan for uploading and printing.
Needless to say, I’m not going to spend the bucks on a professional Epson printer just so I can make digital negatives. It’s not like I’d use it for traditional inkjet prints. I hate spending time in Photoshop and Lightroom anyway, so I just do the bare minimum in those programs to make something presentable to Mpix whenever I need a print of my color photos.
For the longest time, I was convinced that option 3—enlarging to a piece of film—was not an option. First off, there are problems with “traditional” 8×10 films. They’re too sensitive, and they’re very expensive. For example, some 8×10 Ilford film works out to be $4.40 per sheet. There used to be some techniques that you could do with what was known as “Ortho Lith” film, which was used for lithography processes. Sadly, though, it’s no longer produced, and even Freestyle, who was the last vendor to carry it, has run out of material.
But as luck would have it, I stumbled on to what could be a miracle – Ultrafine Continuous-tone Duplicating Film. From the description, it seems that this is what I need… ”Can be used for copying continuous-tone B&W pictures.” ”Permits the making of either same-sized duplicates, or enlarged negatives.” “Most widely used in platinium, palladium, gelatine and gum bichromate printing, and print-out paper applications.” Score! And even in a low-quantity package, it works out to $0.79 per sheet. Relatively speaking, that’s an amazing value.
So last night, I tried my first tests of the film. I treated it like a paper, complete with the last of my PQ Universal developer. It was advertised as being ISO 4, which sounded close to what people use for rating paper in pinhole cameras, so I figured that it should have a rating similar to all these papers I’ve been messing around with. I tried developing a test strip of an enlarged “blank” negative with 3-second exposure increments. A pretty basic paper test to determine the minimum time to reproduce maximum black. To my surprise, the film turned out completely black. No steps or different tones at all. I then tried 1-second steps, figuring that I had somehow overexposed everything. Again, black!
This is when I started to worry. I cut two small pieces of the film, then I threw one straight into the fixer and the other one straight into the developer. The results were strange… The fixed-out piece was orange, of all things. The developed-and-fixed piece was a somewhat-transparent black, just like all the test strips. Confused by the colors, I took out another scrap piece and just looked at it in the room light. The emulsion was orange, like a C-41 film, and the back was colored dark.
I was utterly confused, and was about to call it quits for the rest of the night. But then I realized that I had a nice, fully exposed piece of film in my hands, and I hadn’t tried developing it yet. So, I ran it through the developer, stop and fixer.
It came out blue. Fairly transparent, actually, when compared to my previous “black” test strips. Very strange, since I was expecting something even blacker. Clearly, though, something was up, and I needed to find out what. I finally decided to throw a negative in the carrier and just enlarge it with my trusty Kodak Projection Print Scale. You never can tell, maybe I’d get an image yet. Lo and behold, when I exposed for 60 seconds at f/8, I could actually see an image! It was faint, though, so I decided to go all out, yank out my contrast filter to bump up the light and expose for the same time at f/4. The result was a lot better, because I was getting a great blue-and-black negative.
Wait a minute, negative? Did my eyes deceive me? Sure enough, I was getting a negative image, despite projecting a negative onto the easel. Whatever bizarre process this was, I was getting a positive result. If this actually works, then that would mean I wouldn’t need to make an intermediate positive for making my enlarged negative. That means it would take half as much film as I originally thought to make my negatives for alternative processes!
Sadly, it was getting late, so I was unable to experiment further, instead choosing to bottle up my excitement and save it for the next session in the darkroom. But, needless to say, I’m getting pretty optimistic about producing large negatives for contact printing. Eat it, Epson!
