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Cambridge Darkroom - Film: Ritual and Deferred Gratification
- 1. FILM Ritual and Deferred Gratification
- 2. Slides from a talk given at The Fountain Inn, Cambridge on June 28, 2012 by Brian Human http://brianhuman.co.uk/wp/ Dave Runnacles http://www.flickr.com/photos/lonesomefoghorn/ Roy Hammans http://weepingash.co.uk/ http://real-photographs.co.uk/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/fraxinus/
- 8. William Henry Fox Talbot How charming it would be if it were possible to cause these natural images to imprint themselves durable and remain fixed upon the paper! And why should it not be possible? I asked myself.
- 19. Choices Choices ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
- 22. Disaster
- 31. DIGITAL FILM The camera does everything The camera does nothing All down to you Often involves others Instant gratification Delayed gratification No risks Many risks But, as many pointed out during the talk, it does have MAGIC!
- 36. Digital image Nikon D700 Tri-X 120 Fuji GW690III Digital Film
- 37. Digital original Converted to b/w in Lightroom Tones inverted in Photoshop, printed onto large format transparency via inkjet Contact printed onto photographic paper and lith processed in the darkroom
- 39. Why bother? •Tradition & Craft •Process & Ritual •Object & Subject
- 41. No photographer is as good as the simplest camera. Edward Steichen Photography has not changed since its origin except in its technical aspects, which for me are not important. Henri Cartier-Bresson Every time I find a film or paper that I like, they discontinue it. Paul Strand
- 43. Photography can be a mirror and reflect life as it is, but I also think it is possible to walk, like Alice, through a looking glass and find another kind of world with the camera. Tony Ray-Jones
- 44. Links to useful resources FADU – the Film & Darkroom Users Group – a UK-based group with an international membership. APUG – the Analogue Photography Users Group – the original international group for all film users F295 – Analogue, Digital & Hybrid processes Manual Focus Forum – for lovers of old lenses THIAPS – Traditional Film Photography Large Format Photography Forum – specialises in analogue photography using larger cameras Silverprint – foremost UK supplier of all things film – and ink jet materials too. Ag Photographic – traditional materials On-Linepaper – specialists in fine ink-jet papers
Editor's Notes
- Ritual and instant gratification – the camera obscura. The image presents itself immediately, but must be traced by hand to record it permanently. Start of a long and continuing process of evolution to record the natural world.
- One the earliest surviving ‘fixed’ photographs. Nicéphore Niépce’s ‘Heliograph’, 1826 He dissolved bitumen in lavender oil, a solvent often used in varnishes, and coated a sheet of pewter with this light-sensitive mixture. He then placed the sheet inside a camera obscura to record the picture, and eight hours later the bitumen had hardened with exposure to light and also turned a light grey colour. He then removed it and washed it with lavender oil to remove the unexposed bitumen. The resulting unique image is a ‘positive’, with the lighter areas representing the sunlit portions and the shadows being rendered by the pewter plate itself.
- Daguereotype – Louis Daguerre, 1838 Silver-coated copper plate sensitised with iodine and bromine, therefore first use of silver halides. Exposure 15-30 minutes, plate developed in mercury vapour, ‘fixed’ using sodium thiosulphate and sometimes gold toned. This image is the earliest surviving record of a human figure. The man having his shoes shined was stationary long enough to be recorded during the long exposure. All other activity in this busy street scene was moving and not recorded.
- The equipment needed to prepare, expose and develop a daguerreotype.
- Hand-coloured daguereotype. The process only created a single image unless more than one exposure was made on additional plates. These images could be hand-coloured using paints to give the illusion of a colour record.
- Fox Talbot’s motivational thoughts concerning the creation of a permanent record of the camera obscura image. The ‘Calotype, or ‘Talbotype’, could render many copies from a single recorded ‘negative’ image.
- Fox Talbot’s ‘mousetrap’ camera. Essentially a miniature camera obscura with a removable back to hold the sensitised paper.
- The earliest surviving paper negative created in the mousetrap camera by Fox Talbot, with his own notes. A latticed window in Lacock Abbey in 1835 by Talbot is a print from the oldest photographic negative in existence. By waxing the paper after development (by sunlight) it was rendered more translucent, enabling a contact positive print to be made from the negative. Any number of prints could be made from the one negative.
- As a brief aside, my version of the very same window – an early digital image (1990s) that was actually the first I sent to a colleague in the US electronically.
- Roger Fenton’s solution to instant gratification, the equipment needed to use the cumbersome wet collodion process during the Crimean War. This process, created in 1851, enabled the light sensitive emulsion to be coated on glass plates, greatly increasing the detail and resolution of the final image.
- Roger Fenton, 1855, The Crimea. “The Valley of the Shadow of Death”. Possibly the first photograph published in a national newspaper (via engraving).
- The first example of photo-manipulation? The same photograph with the road cleared of cannonballs, but which photograph was made first?
- Kodak advertisement, 1892 Almost instant gratification – no effort involved but you had to wait for your 100 prints to be returned by Kodak after processing.
- The first true ‘instant gratification’ camera. The unique Polaroid process, invented by Edwin Land, was first made available to the public in 1948.
- Polaroid in the 21 st century: the Z2300 digital, prints in-camera and shoots HD video – August 2012 release
- Disposable hybrid film/digital to full-featured digital SLR; the choice is yours! The Kodak disposable camera helps keep film production alive. It produces film negatives but also gives you scanned versions of the images after processing.
- Analogue is full of choices and challenging decisions. The whole process is about making choices, few of which may be changed after the decision has been made.
- One film will not necessarily cope well with both dark, indoor scenes (without use of flash) and the bright, sunlit beach – though it’s fun trying. Simple family snapshot cameras were asked to do both and did their best. Digital has no such limitations in the majority of cases.
- A considerably underexposed image on digital can be rescued – not the case with film. An error in camera setting resulted in the flash not firing for the exposure top left. As the image was made in RAW format on digital, Adobe Lightroom was able to extract information sufficient to render the image perfectly usable.
- The film process is fraught with risks during both the mechanical (exposure) and chemical (processing) phases. A great deal of Robert Capa’s D–Day landing film was lost in processing or melted in the drying cabinet. But a great picture survives from what was rescued.
- Part of the magic of deferred gratification – the discoveries that can be made on the contact sheet. Even with digital, use of a contact sheet is recommended, both as a hard copy reference of a particular shoot and as a means of studying images away from the computer. Tony Ray-Jones, Glyndebourne 1967
- The final image selected from the contact sheet for enlargement. Part of the enduring magic of film is the discovery of such gems long after the moment of exposure. The delayed gratification and the delight in finding images that ‘worked’ is somewhat lost with digital. Tony Ray-Jones, Glyndebourne 1967
- More from Tony Ray-Jones. No EXIF information or GPS recording – but contact sheets can tell us a lot about the images – and the working method of the photographer. The location of this series was established from identifying the background imagery. The one bracketed was the single classic image from this trip. The red circle indicates a reflection of the photographer in the scene.
- All the elements in place. Tony Ray-Jones – Tripper boat, Beachy Head. 1967
- Dealing with visual and technical challenges leads to very different requirements to get the desired results on film – Ansel Adams, made using a large format 10x8 sheet film camera.
- Robert Mapplethorpe Possibly film is more appropriate to this slower, measured and atmospheric work, although there is no reason why digital could not produce an almost identical image.
- By Robert Frank, from the book The Americans, published in 1958. The gritty realism of Frank’s seminal work owes a lot to film and its use in extreme conditions.
- Henri Cartier-Bresson If HC-B had used digital would he have got this photo? Several reasons why he may not – shutter lag, viewfinder/composition dependent, camera settings Key point is to use the approach most suited to the subject.
- In summary
- Which to use? Photo by Dave Runnacles where colour, timing and composition are all.
- Photograph by Brian Human using a 35mm pinhole camera and colour negative film.
- Hybrid pictures – digital and analogue not mutually exclusive – this pinhole picture by Brian Human, made on colour film, was then scanned and the digital image converted to black & white using Adobe Lightroom. Time here is not of the essence, contemplation, composition and pre-visualisation come into play.
- The two can happily co-exist. But you will need a darkroom if you want to work with film and print the old-fashioned way.
- Digital/Silver comparison. The print top left is an ink-jet image from colour original made with a digital camera. The original file is shown bottom left. The print top right is the same scene, photographed at the same time on a 120 roll film camera on black & white film, processed and printed on silver photo paper. The two enlargements bottom right are made by photographing the actual prints. The film image has greater resolution and sharpness, but the prints are almost indistinguishable when viewed in their entirety.
- Digital original, converted to black and white, printed as a digital large format negative and contact printed as a silver lith print. Full details of this process may be found on my website: www.weepingash.co.uk under Technique>Hybrid Techniques
- Another example of digital to lith print via inkjet internegative.
- The reasons were discussed in more detail during the talk.
- The end products: :Great picture :The print as an object of value – silver or ink jet. :Changing technologies mean that vintage prints have added value – papers are discontinued so negatives can’t be reprinted the same. (This is an article about Diane Arbus’s work and Neil Selkirk, the only person allowed to print from her negatives.)
- Three quotes pertaining to the topic and leading to discussions.
- Final background slide – by Dave Runnacles
- The Evolution of Photography by Eric William Carroll Film or Digital? - No one better than the other – horses for courses, depends on personal preferences and circumstances …