[pure-silver] Re: NOW: Exposing paper was Re: POP with papernegs?
- From: "Gene Johnson" <genej2@xxxxxxx>
- To: <pure-silver@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 16 Dec 2004 07:37:52 -0800
I guess I sort of started this.
I think the business of trying to apply rules to what in the end is at least
partly art is a tricky business. For good or bad, I find myself breaking my
negatives into "types" sometimes. I'll see something in the neg that may or
may not be what was actually there when I shot it and make some kind of
creative judgement about how I want to approach the printing process to
achieve that desired "look". Like, "ooh, this is a dark moody forest pic"
or "this is a twinkling highlights off of wet rocks in a stream picture" or
" this is one of those nostalgic girl walking across smooth sand at low tide
on an overcast day shots". I actually try to fight that but it's hard. My
mind's eye wants things to follow established patterns and it takes effort
to keep it open and look at things with fresh eyes as much as possible.
I've wandered a bit. What I really wanted to contribute was my feeling that
I want the picture to guide my approach. I want to let it show me what it
needs and then print for that, whether it's warm comfortable mid tones or
glowing highlights or unreal shadow detail or whatever.
Ralph, I'll have to admit that it's hard for me to take pictures of people,
especially women's faces, without careful attention to the higher skin
tones. That's where I walk the fine line between that smooth glowing look I
love so much, and blowing out important texture. Man that's fun. It's kind
of what got me into the POP question in the first place. There was a French
postcard studio called Leo with an accent on the e that I'm pretty sure
printed on POP. A photographer named Mandel shot for them and he's rapidly
becoming a major photographic hero of mine. It's probably not everyone's
cup of tea, but aside from Mandel's artistry, I just love the play between
the highlights and the mid tones and shadows with what appears to be a
fairly narrow density range. There's not a true black anywhere. I also
love the orangey red color :)
Here's some of my recent messing around.
http://gothicsandiego.com/hzao/index.html
----- Original Message -----
From: "DarkroomMagic" <info@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "PureSilverNew" <pure-silver@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, December 16, 2004 3:09 AM
Subject: [pure-silver] Re: NOW: Exposing paper was Re: POP with papernegs?
> I just can't imagine a high-key image in which highlights are less
important
> than midtones.
>
> Even with portraits, I would still prefer an image with good highlights
> (probably the most lit side of the face), good open shadows and letting
the
> medium skin tones fall in between, over one where the medium skin tones
are
> theoretically perfect or 100% realistic, but the highlights are blown out
or
> the shadows are dead.
>
> The only exception to 'expose for the highlights and control the shadows
> with contrast', I can think of, are low-key images.
>
>
>
>
>
> Regards
>
>
>
> Ralph W. Lambrecht
>
>
>
>
> On 12/16/04 8:08 AM, "Ryuji Suzuki" <rs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> > Highlights are much less important than midtones in many types of
> > images, including but not limited to portraits. Others are
> > commercial/product photos and many high key images like scenes in
> > heavy fog.
>
>
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