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  #21  
Old 28th December 2016, 08:14 PM
John King John King is offline
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Default Wintery look

Yes it was winter, January 2014 and errrr brass monkey weather at that height.

Attached is a quick resume of my method for burning in or dodging prints.

Marking and Cutting Out A Mask.

Materials.

What you need is a sheet of thinnish card – ordinary paper is to flimsy and will bend. A sheet of something about the thickness of photographic paper is just about right.

Fine tip marking pen.

Stanley knife or scissors.

Method

Shut off the light. Place the negative in the carrier and set enlarger head so that the negative can be focussed on the baseboard at the size you want. Focus roughly at this stage, accurate focussing can come later.

Lower the head to about 8” to10” from the baseboard and refocus, again pin point accuracy not needed. Place the paper under the enlarger so that the image is in the centre of the paper. Now mark out with the pen the outline of the area you need to either burn in or dodge out.

Remove the paper and using the Stanley knife or scissors cut along the edge of the line you have drawn.

Now raise the enlarger head up to the height to give you the print size you need. Focus accurately.

Do your test strips for the 'normal' area , then do further test strips including the original timing first, not forgetting to add or subtract filters as needed. (Dense skies use a softer filter).

When you come to make the final print using the mask, do a dry run so that you can judge where the mask should be held under the enlarging head. If it is held roughly the same distance it was from the base board when you marked it out you will find to be just about correct.

Make the exposure holding the mask where you need it to be, then move the mask up and down an inch or so, so that you blur the edges and don't get a sharp shadow.

You may not get it right the 1st or even 2nd time but practise will make it seem like second nature.
Attached Files
File Type: doc Enlarging mask.doc (13.0 KB, 340 views)

Last edited by John King; 28th December 2016 at 08:17 PM.
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  #22  
Old 28th December 2016, 08:52 PM
Richard Gould Richard Gould is offline
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Nice wintry print.John, makes me feel cold just looking at it,
Richard
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  #23  
Old 29th December 2016, 08:14 AM
EdmundH EdmundH is offline
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Thank you to everyone who has commented here. I shall return to the darkroom (when I get time!) armed with this information. The negative scan I attached is very deceptive, as I digitally cut the highlights to bring out cloud detail.
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  #24  
Old 29th December 2016, 10:41 AM
NJHrs NJHrs is offline
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The scan also seems to be low contrast, I suspect lower than you are going for in the darkroom?

Paper flashing looks a good idea I will be trying that one in some cases as its so straightforward.
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  #25  
Old 29th December 2016, 11:23 AM
B&W Neil's Avatar
B&W Neil B&W Neil is offline
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Unfortunately, I find, with B&W, a featureless sky will always be uninteresting - filtered or otherwise. However, a total black sky, which can be obtained with infrared film is sometimes useful.

I soon realized, with such skies, they are best avoided unless you are after that featureless look, which some photographers, such as Trevor Crone, use to good effect.

Neil.
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"The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance." Aristotle

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  #26  
Old 29th December 2016, 02:55 PM
Alan Clark Alan Clark is offline
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It is interesting to see how well-known photographers have treated the sky in their photographs. Fay Godwin said that she had an aversion to dark skies in black and white photographs. Some of her skies are pale and featureless, and even those with what was obviously a blue sky and white clouds are usually played down and printed rather pale. This low contrast look is carried through into the land itself, so all her photographs have a gentle, homogenous look about them. In other words, the treatment of the sky fits in with the overall look of the entire photograph.
The same homogenous look is apparent in Don McCullen's book "Open Skies", though his photographs are very different from Fay Godwins. Here we have dark brooding skies, and dark brooding landscapes. Heavy printing, and high contrast, conjuring up feelings of moody unease. McCullin said he only did these photographs in Winter. And he probably chose his weather conditions carefully. Fay Godwin, on the other hand, seems to have gone out in all weathers, bright and dull, Summer and Winter, photographed what was there, and somehow managed to produce light, under-stated prints whatever the conditions.

Alan
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  #27  
Old 29th December 2016, 09:36 PM
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Nabhar Nabhar is offline
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Hi EdmundH,

I don't have acces to a darkroom at this time, so I give prominance to ''in camera'' metering and negative development adjustments.

At the point of shooting, I select my chosen shadow zone placement, then measure the difference to the brightest part of any cloud cover within the frame.
If, as an example, the shadow placement is on Zone IV and this places the brightest cloud on Zone IX, then I develop the negative N-1, or more if I want a more heavier grey sky. I have used this technique with a yellow filter also, and I was happy with the range of tones among the cloud cover that the negative produced with a simple scan. I'm sure plenty more localised in-cloud tonal differences could be brought out in the darkroom. One of these days I'll get to try it.

''expose for the shadows, develop for the highlights'' - Ansel Adams

JP
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  #28  
Old 30th December 2016, 02:01 PM
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Martin Aislabie Martin Aislabie is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by B&W Neil View Post
Unfortunately, I find, with B&W, a featureless sky will always be uninteresting - filtered or otherwise. However, a total black sky, which can be obtained with infrared film is sometimes useful.

I soon realized, with such skies, they are best avoided unless you are after that featureless look, which some photographers, such as Trevor Crone, use to good effect.

Neil.
+1

Martin
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  #29  
Old 31st December 2016, 03:02 PM
NJHrs NJHrs is offline
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Well I started printing again for the first time in 25 years last night (6 hr crazy session). First off I will say the RH Analyser Pro is the best thing since sliced bread, its LOL stuff it really does work. Anyways my contribution on this subject is that I printed a picture for which I have a really nice scan (King Alfreds Tower), the print and the scan look very very close to each other but the sky in the darkroom print looks darker and heavier due I think to the grain on the scan looking much more prominent. For that picture it was a clear blue sky with the sun behind me and I used a B+W 040 Orange filter. Tri-X and filters seems to help a lot in my case, gets the negatives close to the end look I am trying to achieve. Don McCullin lives near me I believe over the border in south Somerset, its interesting just how much people can get such a different look and feel in their photographs just from preferences in the imaging chain. I like his landscape photographs but find them a bit depressing.

I also avoid empty pale skies but more limiting I love the light when its behind you and just lights things up, it makes them come alive in my eyes so I tend to do most of my shooting when the sun is out (brooding clouds at the same time even better!).
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  #30  
Old 31st December 2016, 03:21 PM
Alan Clark Alan Clark is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by NJHrs View Post
... Don McCullin lives near me I believe over the border in south Somerset, its interesting just how much people can get such a different look and feel in their photographs just from preferences in the imaging chain. I like his landscape photographs but find them a bit depressing.

I also avoid empty pale skies but more limiting I love the light when its behind you and just lights things up, it makes them come alive in my eyes so I tend to do most of my shooting when the sun is out (brooding clouds at the same time even better!).
NJHrs, find it interesting that different people have different preferences. When I lived in Staffordshire I had a painting buddy who liked to have the light coming from behind him, wheras I like a side light for painting and photography (though not exclusively) We would often paint the same subject, but from different angles...
If you look at the photographs of James Ravillious, he had a real liking for shooting straight into the sun, which can be very dramatic, but also technically difficult to pull off.
He often had pale skies too, though they were often just an unimportant bit at the top of the picture; the real subject being people in the landscape.

Alan
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