tech: it's all about the rhythm

alright, more technical information? i can do that. but bear in mind that analog printing is all about feel. i can feel if the the light is too strong while i expose. i can feel the state of my aging developer as i get through the day. with that in mind, the art of silver gelatin printing starts with the study of actual prints. i can't tell you how many hours i've spent looking at prints. actual prints that i could hold, without glass in front. prints from galleries, museums, private dealers or private collections. a print is rarely on its own, it's usually part of a series, a project with other prints where a common denominator was found. my advice is to keep things simple. i work with only one developer, i used to work with another one before, and others before that. developers never improved my printing, and neither did different papers. that said, i need to know how to make an image feel right, whether it is dark, light, flat, contrasty, warm, cold, soft or whatever. i've used selectol, dektol, sprint, LPD, etc... all kinds of chemistry. sometimes to go faster you don't need a bigger engine, you need to learn how to drive better. i also print for many different artists who have many different styles. right now i mostly use LPD. it's a powder -easy to ship- and i mix only what i need for the day, it's always fresh and easy to get to temperature -which is somewhere between 65 and 70ºF or ± 20ºC - no need to be exact, just consistent.

so i look at the negative, on a light box, with a loupe. i study it really, i memorize its values, make mental notes of the deepest shadows and strongest highlights, try to visualize it as a positive. then i size it, focus it. i focus wide open, i focus closed down, i focus at the f-stop i'll use, i look at the grain. different enlarger heads give me different results. my 4x5 heads are ilford multicontrast, from 0 to 5 in ½ grade increments. and the durst mural 8x10 heads are yellow/magenta controlled. all are diffusion light sources, which just means that the light is bounced around in a box before it hits the neg. not a new technology by any means, from the 70's through the 90's almost everything was printed from a cold head onto graded paper, also from 0 to 5, but reduced to 1 to 4 over the years... but i'm going on a tangent now. M/Y printing can be very accurate, especially on prints 30x40 in. and larger. even one point of M or Y makes a difference. not much room for error, i have to pay really close attention. when a client is waiting at the lab for my next version of the print, i better come out with exactly with what i said i was going to do. or it's just a waste of time for everyone... anyway, you can try and figure out if 18M is more like a grade 3 or 2½, but it's not how it works. first of all, i use the one filter approach, only Y or M, no mixing, the less filtration in front of the neg the better -exposure times can be pretty long on a large print- of course 0Y and 0M being the tipping point between low and high contrast. the starting contrast is based on experience, and this is when i save time and effort by making an educated guess as to filters, f-stop and exposure time based on the paper i'm using, the difference between papers is their actual ISO. i always -almost always- make a straight print to get my base exposure, the one that dictate which part of the image won't get any manipulation, the one constant during the process of making the print. it's the only point of reference i have from beginning to end. no matter what i do to the image, that portion doesn't change, it's like the horizon line for a jet pilot... you know what i mean... remember, when i make a complicated print and i'm asked to improve only the highlight on the tip of a nose -for example- i need to redo everything else the same, on the next print. no second chance.

so i expose. filter # this, # that, dodge, burn etc. song and dance, flash, whatever*. then the developer, i don't change the timing there either for the same image, got to keep consistent. always agitate the same way. and i look at the first black coming up, at different time for different papers. drain really well, always the same amount, dip in the stop bath -99% glacial acetic acid- for 30 sec to a minute, agitate, then drain well -you don't want to mix acid and hypo too much all day long, it gives off bad fumes- and the fix is just a formality at this point (even if it was the toughest chemical to figure out in the invention of photography). i say a formality because after you agitate a couple times you can turn the light on (print face down). the light you turn on to look at the print should always be the same. if i change that -or until i'm used to it in a new darkroom- i can't print properly. once i know my in-darkroom viewing light, i can tell the dry-down exactly. i close my eyes to get used to the change dark-light-dark for a few seconds each time.

one print at a time is the easiest way to go.

although my favorite days are when i print 3 different jobs on 3 different enlargers on 3 different papers. never tried 4. i like the challenge to juggle the numbers in my head, that is until somebody calls me out of my darkroom for a question and brakes my rhythm. because it's all about the rhythm, things flows when you keep going. it's very hard for me to stop and go, even if it is the reality of a printer...

i don't know what other tech stuff i could talk about. i'm really not a tech person, i don't like to talk too much about the specifics, but i know what i can do with every single piece of equipment and chemistry there is in my darkroom. i'm sure some people could tell me that this or that paper-dev combination would be better. that's OK, the only thing that matters to me is that the client i print for is getting the best print possible on time. and i always add a little something to each print so i know it was mine. and when i show another printer how to match my prints i tell them my tricks for that image, but in the end if they do it their way they'll get a better print. it's all by feel. and an understanding of the client's vision so the prints never come back. i don't like when my prints come back. no printer likes that. to me it means that the line of communication got broken, details were omitted, or i didn't get all the information i needed. i have to ask the right questions before i print. if you bring me a negative and just ask for a print, you'll get my print, not yours. and you won't get your print until i get under your skin, or at least study your images very -very- closely.  and then some days, out of the blue, somehow, i can't get passed some technical challenge, and i can't feel the image. those days, as far and few in between as they may be :) those days i have to accept i won't get a stunning print. and i certainly don't want to make an average print. so i print it the next day, when i feel better. that's the true secret of making a good print.

*i will talk about the actual exposure experience at another time. it's my favorite part.

the craft of printing

everyday i print, and everyday i wonder: am i improving the state of the print as an object, or am i just making a nice little package in a frame ready to hang? or, most likely, am i making a print that will sit in an archival box put in an archival drawer for investment purposes? hard to tell really. but i do wonder. i print a lot every week and there is no way all these prints are being displayed. well, maybe for the length of a show, or until the house is re-decorated, or part of a traveling / ready-to-hang show?

does it matter? not to me, i get to see the prints. i get to see the prints even more than the photographers. i see the negatives, i see the prints appear in my developer, i see them too flat, too dark, too light, wet, dry, wrinkled, flattened, mounted, etc. so to me it doesn't matter really. what bothers me are the photographers i don't print for, the work i like and only saw in books, or occasionally in a gallery or museum. i'm thinking of josef koudelka, michael kenna, gabrielle basilico in particular. but others in general, photographers like eugène atget, jean-loup sieff or henry cartier-bresson. i have seen prints of these people, unfortunately not always top quality -especially in books- so today i'm thinking there isn't enough quality control filtering the prints that come out of the estates of famous artists. perhaps it is best that editions are getting smaller. in this age of printing technology, just the fact that we could print away but limit ourselves to just a few copies is showing respect to images that are special. but is the print itself part of that evolution? i mean, if the artist gets better prints from a different printer, does the value go up? what if a new printer produces inferior prints at a lesser price, does the value go down? no. no. and no. yet, a small mark on a print devalues it. of course, from my point of view, it should be a part of the equation. i have seen prints from estates of famous photographers that were not up to any standard. this is where the art of printing shows its craft, and craftmanship is key to any technical work. in any case, a bad print will gain value again with time, when it becomes vintage...this is what i think about when i print. being a printer means long hours in the dark having a visual conversation with a negative, so the verbal part of my brain is free to while away the hours with a conversation of its own. printing can get pretty physical so the mind wanders. you got to carry a 40 lbs roll of 56” wide paper, then go up 10-12 ft and hang the paper with magnets, to the 1/8 of an inch -1/4 sometimes- and then roll it up through the gallons of chemicals you mixed earlier. then hang it again to dry. luckily the enlarger moves at the touch of a button. and then you just have to brake it all down clean until the next day. it's good exercise i have to say. after a few prints of the same image, it becomes shapes that need to go lighter or darker. they come back as images when i'm ready to roll them up for finishing, and look up one last time at my finished print. this is when i see what really worked, the details that became what i expected, others i wish had followed my lead better. anyway, that's when i go home. sometimes i look at different book reproductions of prints i'm working on and compare in my head, adjust for the different medium, and i know if i had a good day or not.

the straight print

the art of the straight print.

it's always in the back of my mind, it's my white whale, i pursue it with every negative i put through my enlarger. except sometimes i do get one... i get it through meticulous scrutiny of the said negative, the perfect contrast-exposure combination, and a bit of luck. first i have to start with a test a bit light and a bit under-contrast, and then i build up the density -like any print really- then i adjust the contrast. i look closely at the print -developing and developed- to find what i call the first black. that takes about 2 to 3 tries, full image only to really understand how the whole image works, and quick too as long as your first guess is within 1/2 grade and 1/2 stop. of course, not every negative is a good candidate, but i always keep my eyes open for the one, it can be thin or contrasty, there is no perfect neg. and when i say straight print, i mean no dodging or burning, i can use different filters but that's it. i usually know if i have a chance on the second test.

oh, by the way, the art of the straight print has no meaning whatsoever outside of my darkroom, i don't discuss it with anybody (well, a fellow printer maybe), it's a personal achievement that fulfills a need to simplify the printing process. i like to reduce my skills to the most basic details. in order to reach the straight print i have to think like a minimalist and compose the technique for the whole image at once. even more so than usual. i also think about it more between exposures, and when i feel i'm almost there i make very small moves. the trick is to be very aware of the first black and first white -that's why i always under-estimate the density and filtration- that tells me if i need a bit more exposure on a higher or lower grade -or both- to compensate. and this is where the white whale problem comes in: time goes by as i reach just one more piece of paper, one more of many, and i should have moved on and abandon ship, but i keep reaching a little further, just because you never know. eventually reality sets back in, and i reluctantly grab my dodging tool or let more light on the top right corner... then the rest of the printing day just seems dull. and when i receive a negative that had been a straight print once, i know i'll have a good day. a straight print is a very rare thing, but it does happen, and i don't know why i even care about it. exceptions are always more beautiful it seems. in the moment, i find myself just looking at the negative print itself, probably a little smurk on my face, thinking yep, i got you just where i wanted...

anyway, no straight print this week, i don't get a straight print when i print for arthur elgort, michael halsband, jerry schatzberg, bob gruen and mitch epstein in the same week. printing for these photographers is even better than a straight print! it's like watching a bit of the history of photography being made, even some of it is already a part of history. still though, a straight print is something special, at least for me.

so bob gruen and jerry schatzberg meet for the first time, in front of their prints, and all i have to capture that moment is my phone...  i apologize for that.

my favorite lenses

my favorite lenses i use every week:

schneider-kreuznach componon-S f-5.6-45/300 mm

rodenstock rodagon f-5.6-45/210 mm

schneider-kreuznach componon-S f-5.6-32/100 mm

rodenstock apo-rodagon f-4-22/ 80mm

rodenstock rodagon-G 2.8-16/50 mm

schneider-kreuznach apo-componon HM f-2.8-16/40 mm

i just really like good optics. in my everyday i enjoy all sorts of light from different sources. but when i'm working in my darkroom i like clean light, and by that i mean photons going through pieces of glass that have been expertly grounded. as a photographer i am always asked what cameras and lenses i use, but as a printer, well, no one -few exceptions- ever asks me what lens i use to print. yet, if i may, in analog printing the lens is pretty much the only thing between a negative and the paper. actually, it is the only thing. so yes, it's pretty important to me. and by now i know which f/stop works well what print size, or what type of grain is on the film. it's not an exact science, but it's based on my experience by looking at -and making- thousands and thousands of prints over the years. i have preferences of course, and i apply them to different situations. it's a matter of paying attention to what happens to the grain through a certain lens at a particular contrast and different densities. this is an exercise i practice on a weekly basis when i try to figure out the best way to print whatever neg at whatever size on whatever paper in whatever developer. i know, it's a lot of whatevers, but there are so many variations it takes years -for me at least- to understand. on my own images it's quite easy: i know what i like and how to get there. many a times i've used my findings on other people's negatives. i learn by doing, and there is a always a new puzzle to solve. so when i'm asked how i think this image should be printed, i have an opinion. when i loupe a neg i can tell you at what size the grain will start to change based on the contrast i would probably use. but all this is just talk, and visual artists need to see, this is why there is a service called and i quote 'test strip at size'. artists lean toward one look or another, i put their words into values, sometimes i can almost hear their inner-monologues. no, not really, but when i get a negative with a note saying 'you'll see, it's pretty straightforward', or 'you know what to do', also 'you remember what it looks like, you printed it once 3 years ago', then i know i've earned the trust of the person i print for. if i'm off in my guess, it's back to zero... this is one of the reasons i like analog printing. that is also one of the reasons i need to know my lenses so well. coating on the front lens varies, the result being more or less contrast. no lens is necessarily bad, it might just be more appropriate to a different puzzle.

and for large prints something else is between the light and the paper besides the lens, the 2 pieces of glass that sandwich the negative. anti-newton, regular, one of each, different groves etched into the glass, not every combination is right for everything, and sometimes no glass is best -but very difficult on a large print with long exposures- 20x24 in. and under i print without glass, instead i let the acetate expand and retract with the heat from the enlarger, so i re-focus every time i make an exposure. i look at grain through loupes at every size and contrast, so i learn still, every day.

aldo sessa next to a 56x70 print

(matte toned sepia btw)

we had a good day.

no darkroom, no problem.

no darkroom, no problem. thousands of miles away from new york, sun and heat all around, and what did i pack along with my cameras? paper. photo paper to make lumen prints. i can't help it. i need to make prints as much as i need to take pictures. a lumen print is done under glass with the sun, as much sun as possible, and not just for the light but for the heat as well. i look at the lumen print as the sophisticated cousin of the photogram. casting shadows under the light of an enlarger is fun, don't get me wrong, my son used to make them while waiting for me to be done at the lab. man ray used to make great ones, pushing shadows to all kinds of shades of grays. rayograms to him were poems, stories told with the imprints of objects. simple and brillant at the same time. much later, adam fuss took the practice to a new level. he used to order rolls of silver gelatin paper from me back when i had lexington labs. and the ones he made of different fabrics and textures on color paper i think are mesmorizing. and my friend nigel scott, who is very demanding and precise on the silver prints i make for him, then on kentmere papers, now on ilford emulsion with a hahnemuhle base. i love his images, he makes contact prints, cyanotypes of plants and flowers mostly, on silk. you'd have to see an original to understand the beauty. but we are still talking about shadows and light, sort of like printing from negative. shadow and hightlights. a lumen print introduces dyes from the flowers and plants, and i can get color out of my black and white paper. in the alternative printing world where a silver print is considered almost too easy to make -and i'm talking about the basic process now- in a world of experimentation that keeps certain traditions alive, i feel the lumen print has its rightful place. the pigments from the plants mix with the silver and start making all sorts of colors. and to someone like me who enjoys looking at a negative, that's exactly what it looks like: a color negative made on black and white paper from different leaves and petals. a lot of C, M and Y but not much K, appear so clearly that when i squint i can see the full RGB spectrum. it is a thing of beauty so delicate i can stare at it for long stretches of time. and that's what i've been doing this week. high noon is my prefered time of the day: ninety degree angle from the sun rays and so hot it can burn a mango leaf in under a half-hour. droplets of water move from the plant to the glass, and the rest transfers deep into the layers of the emulsion. the colors i get depend on the type of plant, emulsion, exposure and time of day. it is a simple concept but not as predictable as you'd think. anyway, that's what i do when i'm in brazil and need to satisfy my need to print. i'll be back in my (very)darkroom printing negatives soon enough, so i'm really enjoying doing this right now.

happy new year!

i got faults, but i can waltz!

goodbye darkness my old friend, i´m taking a break for the holidays.  every project gets suspended in time.  last friday i finished the week with a 50x60 print for max snow, a re-do for me because one of my 2 finals got creased.  a tiny crease, but a crease nonetheless, one that wouldn´t blend in once mounted.  a print that takes another person to help in the dodging department.  there are shadows to take out in the foreground and the background of a high key print, and i just don´t have enough hands to do the job alone...  yes, it could have been retouched digitally, but to do it by hand is a bit rougher, not as clean, it has imperfections that give the final print a certain look.  and that would be very difficult to do in photoshop.  i mention this because it´s not always about perfection, a print has a life within, it breaths, it speaks to its viewer, and with the right imperfections in the right places it comes alive, the image sometimes feels as if it floats in front of the paper.  our eyes accept those flaws because they improve -sometimes- the final print.  when the flaws are all fixed through photoshop, you run the risk to lose the feeling of that moment captured by the artist.  because why would you go to print if you still see details to fix?  it´s easier to let go in the darkroom.

2 days earlier i had the opposite problem for elizabeth heyert:  i was able to hide -make disappear- a floor on a 16x20 work print, but when i went to a much bigger final size i just couldn´t do it.  i tried every which way but it was physically impossible.  some things i can do with an easel but can´t reproduce on the wall for a print bigger than me.  i didn´t see it coming, or maybe i didn´t want to.  in any case, i only know my own limitations once i reach them.  so we scanned, retouched, output an LVT neg, made a contact of it, made a work print, hoping it´s going to match the original feeling.  in this case it´s the softness of the light and the sharpness of a large format -8x10- negative that make the image work.  it works now as a 16x20 work print, and i´ll find out in january if it will work bigger.  i can guess but i won´t know for sure until i try, especially when it is part of a series and every other print has been made from the original neg.  it will be up to elizabeth...

to quote one of my favorite songs an analog silver print could sing:

"i got faults, but i can waltz!"

happy holidays.
and the print in the image above is a 52x52 in. from an LVT for deborah luster.

push the machine

as what is now called an analog printer, i have been dealing with digital photography since its beginning. from my experience, the two blend together really well, i don't feel like one process is better than another. any way to make an image should help the final print, projection, or on-screen visualization. i shot film when i started because that was the norm: you'd buy film, expose it, and process it in your bathroom, print it in a make-shift darkroom. very much like young photographers today have an inkjet printer attached to their computer. technology changes and more and more people can make images. as a printer i do my part to make sure the craft and quality of the prints are always questioned. photography has been a hobby to many people since the kodak brownie, since then the technology is available to anyone, so the craft needed for its art form deserves a certain je-ne-sais-quoi, a higher standard to start, meaning the machines are only as good as their operators. and i have to know if the print i am being asked to make as a silver gelatin wouldn't look better with another process. be it pigment or pop print, what always matters to me is the final print. i like it as an object.

anyway.

so when i started to use photoshop, it felt pretty natural. i knew the vocabulary, i had tools, even though some were rather rusty at first, now they can do more than i care to use. that's pretty incredible. when i choose what film to use, i have a look in mind already. shooting digital, i can preset histograms for any light i like. the craft is in the understanding of the relationship between what you want, and what the machine can do. i push the machine because i always try to improve my style. with photoshop i have more time to perfect the image, perhaps sometimes gone one step too far -we all have- but in the darkroom i have a time restrain, i have a clock that turns backwards, a timer that counts down, or up. i think studio musicians can play the same tune in exactly the same amount of time, each time. that's what i do as a darkroom technician, i follow -or try and keep up- the tempo of the print. i dodge and burn in rhythm, especially if i happen to make a dozen in a row of the same image. on my screen i only have to do it once, i don't need a plan, a full map of the dance in my head, i just move methodically with layers i can use or not. i am able to see the image in so many ways at a click of a button it's beautiful. the craft is in the pushing the machine. in the darkroom, the contrast scales are my levels, i combine them with the exposure and the development time like a curve. i can add or reduce contrast on specific areas, crop, or correct the perspective. the concepts are the same. the healing tool is my spotting brush.

at the end, we rarely look at images on the same screen as someone else, we sometimes see the same prints with the same light. you just don't know where the print will be displayed eventually. i just hope that people light a print to see what they like, similar to how we set our screens, we calibrate to a certain standard. too much or not enough light can kill a black and white print, and color prints seem to want to soak up any part of the spectrum floating around. digital color retouchers work in ,basically, darkrooms. a visually clean environment is most important to a sensitive eye.

when i had only color paper available to me for my own color prints, i would skip a lot of images because i didn't like the surface of a c-print. i would hesitate before i would print because i didn't -and still don't- like the feel of a c-print as an object. now, i can use any paper i wish, with a number of different printing techniques. i have been doing a lot more color work in the past 6 to 8 years than ever before. digital photography has integrated itself into the photo world as fast as any other changes before -how quick did the dagguerreotype studios in new york disappear? we are a far cry from the late 90's, when it was an accomplishment to convince a client to even try. one of my first projects was to get film via fedex from the cannes festival, all these celebrity pictures were processed in new york, then we'd scan the negatives and email (sounds easy so far in 2012) them as contact sheets to the magazine that night, they would make their picks that we would print in new york... the first inkjets were terrible, now they dominate the market, there must be as many inkjet printing studios than there were daguerreotypes'... it makes my silver prints that much more special. because all i really need is a light bulb and a lens. no lens? a pinhole works just as well. we all need to be able to at least make a coffee print on a banana peel, and printing will be around forever...

rock'n roll printing

musicians get photographed all the time, it seems as if we never have enough images of the music scene. and of course, our culture brought a few of those pictures to iconic status, i've had a few of the negatives in my hands over the years. i'm thinking about bob gruen's john lennon nyc shirt picture, i wasn't entirely relaxed when i first printed it, but i'm used to it by now. still, i feel the power this image has as i put the neg in my enlarger and print it, and i listen to john lennon or the beatles while in the darkroom, it puts me in the mood. of course, bob gruen has many well-known pictures, and he still brings me negs sometimes that i still haven't seen. there is also mick rock's lou reed transformer picture, the one that looks like a drawing, a bit out of focus. when i first saw the strip of film i couldn't see the image, mick laughed because it is a well exposed sharp negative shot live. the trick is in the printing, and after having the album cover on my wall as a teenager i felt i was let in on a secret.

i also had the chance to print many danny clinch images of bruce springsteen, lynn goldsmith's rolling stones, keith green's dee dee ramone project, michael halsband's ben harper album cover, art kane's great day in harlem, jacques lowe's jazz greats, fred mcdarragh's and jerry shatzberg's bob dylan, kate simon's iggy pop, bert stern's louie armstrong, bruce weber's chet baker, al wertheimer's elvis, yelena yumchuk's smashing pumpkins (wonderful booklet of photographs inside the cd) ... and so many more that it's difficult to remember them all. for a while i felt like a rock'n roll printer. michael stipe used to bring negs to print, and bryan adams. i printed lou reed's first photo show, he must have spent a couple of months in my darkroom so we could play and work and figure out how to make his images into a coherent series. nick zinner (yeah yeah yeahs) used to work for me as a printer then, and he helped me print timothy greenfield-sanders's 700 portraits series (set of 3 btw).

so when i said in the first week i wrote this blog, that a printer's resumé is their clients' images, i wasn't far off. without all these unbelievable photographs of musicians i wouldn't have much to talk about as far as printing goes.

i've also been printing for patti smith for about 15 years. i've always admired her words and music, and her photographs really touch me as well. she shoots polaroids and i reproduce them on a soft warm paper the same size as the originals, about 3x4 to 4x5 in. this requires very subtle moves as i have to go from cold glossy to warm matte keeping the feeling the images portray, usually very quiet and understated. all done with old-fashioned 4x5 copy negs for those who might wonder.

there is also sam erickson (who used to work at my lab as well), he went on to do a documentary about dave matthews and brought all the prints to do. and justin jay who was following puff daddy (at the time) everyday, everywhere, for maybe two years or so, coming back once in a while with a huge bag of film. kevin masur used to bring a lot of black and white prints as well, all from negs and a few at a time, i remember a very strong contrast but details everywhere. and i got to know about hip-hop better through the images i printed for ricky powell. a new york culture that was and is still through his eyes, and i made the prints always with a few great stories from ricky. same with don paulsen, many stories to go with all the 8x10's i made of a lot of his great images of the 60's and 70's.  and i can't forget nigel scott's pictures of bob marley that we printed in a way that he could include them on surfboard designs.  the boards look amazing.

i moved to new york in 1987 to do photography and film, in part because i would listen to a lot of new york music like patti smith, velvet underground and the ramones. i didn't think at the time that printing good ol' silver prints would bring me so close to a certain rock scene i was drawn to. i still listen to the music from that period, i do when i print for bob gruen (often), and i can listen to whatever i want whenever i want with pandora on my phone through speakers. it really changed the way a printing day goes. i used to play tapes (hotel california when i was 12 or so), listen to the radio, play cd's, more radio, ipod made a big difference, and now the biggest technological problem in my darkroom is the wifi. the music varies with what i print, from leonard cohen to led zepplin, reggae, from patti smith, bob dylan to the clash and tom waits. and a lot of french music. and the radio, live or on-demand brings the whole world into my darkroom. and this week i'm printing one of my favorite pictures of the clash, the 4 of them on stage by bob gruen. i really like that picture, it's a treat to print it, or them rather, as 20x24's, 16x20's and 11x14's. because at the end of the day, it's just about making prints.