strange printing advice from book
Gerhard May
On Thu, 12 Jun 1997 19:52:51 GMT, dick...@ix.netcom.com (Richard
Knoppow) wrote:
> Some years ago Dr. Richard Henry, an industrial chemist wrote a
>book debunking many of the photographic myths of the past. I think
>the second edition is still in print. The title is _Controls in Black
>and White Photography_ Its well worth finding and reading. Dr. Henry
>did actual controlled experiments to determine his results and some of
>them run quite counter to the popular wisdom.
Hi Richard,
In rec.photo.darkroom I stumbled across your litrature hint.
I just read mar...@aol.com (MarBau)'s article on the same subject. As
the book is obviously out of print there it is most likely available
at some library here in Germany. To get it there I need to know the
complete title year of publication and the publisher.
I strongly appreciate any hint.
The point is that my own experiments gave a lot of hints which "run
quite counter to the popular wisdom."
You see, I am burning to get an ISBN or a reliable source of Henry's
book.
Your answer would help me a lot.
Thanks in advance.
Gerhard May
Reply To field intentionally incorrect to avoid spam.
To get my correct email address remove NOSPAM
Linda H. Segrest
I was recently thumbing through "The Amateur Photographer's
Handbook," and ran across some curious advice, a quote from one A. Aubrey
Bodine:
The thrust of the advice was that, to get great prints, you must
radically underexpose the paper and develop it for 10-20 minutes. The
author claims that Mr. Bodine got incredible prints with "rich blacks" and
"bright whites" and midtones that gave them a "three-dimensional quality."
I don't get it; I can tell when a print is underexposed and it
looks quite bad. What am I missing here?
-T.J.
--
Gordon Root
Linda H. Segrest (l...@Sunmuw1.MUW.Edu) wrote:
: I was recently thumbing through "The Amateur Photographer's
This sounds like quite an old book. There was some basis with older papers
to develope prints somewhat longer to make certain that they were
developed to completion . The 20 minutes is excessive and you had
to be sure that your developer was fresh or serious staining could result.
With older papers I always printed for a development time of at least 2
minutes. Longer was ok but overexposing a print and then "pulling " it
when it was dark enough but not really properly developed could result in
some really muddy and rotten looking prints.
The newer papers seem to come up much quicker and 1 minute in developer
usually looks ok but I still stick with the old - print for 2 minute
development ritual.
An interesting old book is J.Ghislain Lootens book "Lootens on
Photographic Enlarging and Print Quality". My copy was copyright 1944.
Although a lot of the photographic material has been changed or upgraded
(Or in my opinion -downgraded) since this was published it is an excellent
old book . I learned a lot from this little book years ago.
We did have some fine silver-rich papers years ago that produced some
wonderful results. I recently retired and revamped my darkroom and I am
going to have to explore some of the papers presently available to see if
there are some are available that can yield the beauty of some of the
older papers that I had the pleasure of using in the past.
Regards
Gordon
Jean-David Beyer
Linda H. Segrest wrote:
> I was recently thumbing through "The Amateur Photographer's
> Handbook," and ran across some curious advice, a quote from one A.
> Aubrey
> Bodine:
>
I read that book in the mid 1970's. By then, it was in its eighth
edition. I suppose youcould develop the film in the developers they
recommended: they gave lots of funny
formulae. One of them must win the award for containing the most
ingredients.
One had salicylic acid in it (in case processing negatives gave you
headaches),
one had nickel ammonium sulfate, whose purpose seems to have been to
change
the pH by an amount not noticeable within experimental error from those
without it.
They were meant, I guess, to combat the high grain of the films of the
day (I am not
sure what day; since this was in the 8th edition, perhaps the first was
pre WW-II),
but with today's film, and most people using smaller film sizes than
then, the loss
of sharpness from using these developers would be too high a price to
pay for the
grain reduction you get.
Papers have changed some since those days. While many complain about
today's
papers, and I have used nothing older than 1974, I would guess that
today's papers
are actually better than immediately post WW-II papers if the maximum
black is a guide.
In those days, it was difficult to get a maximum black of over about
1.7, where a max.
black these days of over 2.1 is routine.
--
Jean-David Beyer
Shrewsbury, New Jersey
Richard Knoppow
l...@Sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Linda H. Segrest) wrote:
> I was recently thumbing through "The Amateur Photographer's
>Handbook," and ran across some curious advice, a quote from one A. Aubrey
>Bodine:
> The thrust of the advice was that, to get great prints, you must
>radically underexpose the paper and develop it for 10-20 minutes. The
>author claims that Mr. Bodine got incredible prints with "rich blacks" and
>"bright whites" and midtones that gave them a "three-dimensional quality."
> I don't get it; I can tell when a print is underexposed and it
>looks quite bad. What am I missing here?
>
> -T.J.
>--
>
Bodine was a well known "pictorialist" in the 1930's. I got
something like this advise when learning photography in about my
jr.highschool days from old timers. Its bad advise and I made bad
prints because of it. Older papers may have been more amenable to
extra long development but what I remember is having difficulty with
fogging and image spread. I don't think this was ever a good way to
handle paper and is just another bit of myth. All sorts of strange
things are found in old books. William Mortensen, another very well
known pictorialist of the 1930's and 40's advised severly
underexposing film and developing it in diluted developer for up to
several hours. He did so much art work on his prints that he may have
been able to get away with this, its very bad practice.
Some years ago Dr. Richard Henry, an industrial chemist wrote a
book debunking many of the photographic myths of the past. I think
the second edition is still in print. The title is _Controls in Black
and White Photography_ Its well worth finding and reading. Dr. Henry
did actual controlled experiments to determine his results and some of
them run quite counter to the popular wisdom.
---
Richard Knoppow
Los Angeles, Ca.
dick...@ix.netcom.com
MarBau
Sorry to say, the Henry book is out of print and the publisher does not
expect it to be reprinted.
Mark.
Some people make art to impress others.
I make art to impress myself.
LJ Powell
l...@Sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Linda H. Segrest) wrote:
> I was recently thumbing through "The Amateur Photographer's
>Handbook," and ran across some curious advice, a quote from one A. Aubrey
>Bodine:
> The thrust of the advice was that, to get great prints, you must
>radically underexpose the paper and develop it for 10-20 minutes. The
>author claims that Mr. Bodine got incredible prints with "rich blacks" and
>"bright whites" and midtones that gave them a "three-dimensional quality."
> I don't get it; I can tell when a print is underexposed and it
>looks quite bad. What am I missing here?
>
> -T.J.
>--
Folks who have been into photography for a long time often develop
their own peculiar ways of doing things. This ways work for them and
produce the results that *they* see. Often, these ways are
drastically different from the standard.
The safe approach for a newbie is to follow standard techniques until
they are well learned and the user is comfortable with them. Then, it
is safe to branch out into experimentation.
For example, I have been using T-Max film ever since it hit the
street, and I have my own set of processes for working with it. They
work very well for me, but they are not the proper starting point for
someone who has never done b/w photography. That individual is far
better off following the instructions that Kodak publishes.
I suspect that what you read reflects the techniques that worked very
well for Bodine, but I also suspect that they wouldn't necessarily do
moch at all for your photography or for mine.
BTW, wasn't Bodine the photojournalist in Baltimore back in the 50's?
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Louie Powell
<LJPo...@ix.netcom.com>
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Tim Brown
l...@Sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Linda H. Segrest) wrote:
> I was recently thumbing through "The Amateur Photographer's
>Handbook," and ran across some curious advice, a quote from one A. Aubrey
>Bodine:
> The thrust of the advice was that, to get great prints, you must
>radically underexpose the paper and develop it for 10-20 minutes. The
>author claims that Mr. Bodine got incredible prints with "rich blacks" and
>"bright whites" and midtones that gave them a "three-dimensional quality."
This is amusing because there was recently talk on this NG about
overexposing and underdeveloping prints, another "old timer" trick.
TB
Richard Knoppow
Jean-David Beyer <jdb...@exit109.com> wrote:
>Linda H. Segrest wrote:
>
>> I was recently thumbing through "The Amateur Photographer's
>> Handbook," and ran across some curious advice, a quote from one A.
>> Aubrey
>> Bodine:
>>
>
The formula with Nickel Ammonium Sulfate in it is Champlin 15. I
have both of Harry Champlin's books dating from the mid to late
1930's. They contain a strange mixture of good advise as to general
practice wih small negatives with absolute black magic chemistry.
I've forgotten who it was who blew him out of the water in a review
but it ended Champlin-15. The Nickel compound BTW, combines with the
sulfite (I think it is) to form metallic Nickel which immediately
precipitates out of solution and has to be filtered out. All the
various acids in it do is to lower the pH and thus the activity a bit.
Photography books from this period are full of stuff like this,
unfortunately, too much of it has survived.
Richard Knoppow
LJPo...@ix.netcom.com (LJ Powell) wrote:
>l...@Sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Linda H. Segrest) wrote:
>
>> I was recently thumbing through "The Amateur Photographer's
>>Handbook," and ran across some curious advice, a quote from one A. Aubrey
>>Bodine:
>> The thrust of the advice was that, to get great prints, you must
>>radically underexpose the paper and develop it for 10-20 minutes. The
>>author claims that Mr. Bodine got incredible prints with "rich blacks" and
>>"bright whites" and midtones that gave them a "three-dimensional quality."
>> I don't get it; I can tell when a print is underexposed and it
>>looks quite bad. What am I missing here?
>>
>> -T.J.
>>--
>Folks who have been into photography for a long time often develop
>their own peculiar ways of doing things. This ways work for them and
>produce the results that *they* see. Often, these ways are
>drastically different from the standard.
>
>The safe approach for a newbie is to follow standard techniques until
>they are well learned and the user is comfortable with them. Then, it
>is safe to branch out into experimentation.
>
>For example, I have been using T-Max film ever since it hit the
>street, and I have my own set of processes for working with it. They
>work very well for me, but they are not the proper starting point for
>someone who has never done b/w photography. That individual is far
>better off following the instructions that Kodak publishes.
>
>I suspect that what you read reflects the techniques that worked very
>well for Bodine, but I also suspect that they wouldn't necessarily do
>moch at all for your photography or for mine.
>
>BTW, wasn't Bodine the photojournalist in Baltimore back in the 50's?
>
>-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
>Louie Powell
><LJPo...@ix.netcom.com>
>-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
>
This is excellent advice. Bodine was head of the commercial
photography department for the Baltimore Sun newspaper. He was a very
active pictorialist. A good deal of his work was published in
_American Photography_ magazine and in their annuals. American
Photography is interesting to read because of its rather concervative
position on photographic style at a time when the Life Magazine
journalistic approach was displacing the rather idealized version of
the pictorialism of Stieglitz that was popular in amateur circles at
the time. They hated Life with a passion; thought the pictures
without beauty; too realistic and coarse. Maybe they were but they
have stood the test of time better than most of the pictorialist
stuff. I should point out that Edward Weston who might also be
considered a pictorialist but is _very_ far removed in philosophy and
practice from the American Photography / Boston Camera Club folks.
All totally off topic, sorry.
Adolph B. Amster
Yes, he was - and he was very good, too!
--
Delete "REMOVE" from address to reply
Adolph B. Amster
do...@REMOVEridgecrest.ca.us
06/13/97 15:30
Using OUI PRO 1.5.0.2
Jean-David Beyer
Gerhard May wrote:
> On Thu, 12 Jun 1997 19:52:51 GMT, dick...@ix.netcom.com (Richard
> Knoppow) wrote:
>
> > Some years ago Dr. Richard Henry, an industrial chemist wrote a
> >book debunking many of the photographic myths of the past. I think
> >the second edition is still in print. The title is _Controls in Black
> >and White Photography_ Its well worth finding and reading. Dr. Henry
> >did actual controlled experiments to determine his results and some of
> >them run quite counter to the popular wisdom.
> Hi Richard,
>
> In rec.photo.darkroom I stumbled across your litrature hint.
>
> I just read mar...@aol.com (MarBau)'s article on the same subject. As
> the book is obviously out of print there it is most likely available
> at some library here in Germany. To get it there I need to know the
> complete title year of publication and the publisher.
> I strongly appreciate any hint.
>
> The point is that my own experiments gave a lot of hints which "run
> quite counter to the popular wisdom."
>
> You see, I am burning to get an ISBN or a reliable source of Henry's
> book.
I am not Richard K., but the information you may need is:
"Controls In Black-And-White Photography", Second Edition, by Richard Joseph Henry
Focal Press Boston - London, Copyright 1986. ISBN 0-240-51788-1.
The Copyright page also contains the following two addresses from which you
might be able to get a copy:
Typeset and printed by Angel Press/Publishers; 561 Tyler St. Monterey, CA 93940.
Butterworth Publishers, 80 Montvale Avenue, Stoneham, MA 02180.
Michael A. Covington
Sounds like a very roundabout way to make high-contrast paper!
--
Michael A. Covington http://www.ai.uga.edu/faculty/covington/
Associate Director <><
Artificial Intelligence Center
The University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602-7415 U.S.A.
Richard Knoppow
NOSPA...@metronet.de (Gerhard May) wrote:
>On Thu, 12 Jun 1997 19:52:51 GMT, dick...@ix.netcom.com (Richard
>Knoppow) wrote:
>
>> Some years ago Dr. Richard Henry, an industrial chemist wrote a
>>book debunking many of the photographic myths of the past. I think
>>the second edition is still in print. The title is _Controls in Black
>>and White Photography_ Its well worth finding and reading. Dr. Henry
>>did actual controlled experiments to determine his results and some of
>>them run quite counter to the popular wisdom.
>Hi Richard,
>
>In rec.photo.darkroom I stumbled across your litrature hint.
>
> I just read mar...@aol.com (MarBau)'s article on the same subject. As
>the book is obviously out of print there it is most likely available
>at some library here in Germany. To get it there I need to know the
>complete title year of publication and the publisher.
>I strongly appreciate any hint.
>
>The point is that my own experiments gave a lot of hints which "run
>quite counter to the popular wisdom."
>
>You see, I am burning to get an ISBN or a reliable source of Henry's
>book.
>
>Your answer would help me a lot.
>
>Thanks in advance.
>
>Gerhard May
>Reply To field intentionally incorrect to avoid spam.
>To get my correct email address remove NOSPAM
I don't have the ISBN at hand. The book is:
__Controls in Black and White Printing__ second edition, Richard
J, Henry, 1986, The Focal Press, Boston.
My copy has been hiding somewhere since a major house cleaning and
I will have to find it.
Dennis Kibbe
Back in 1939 Dr. Ed Lowe (?) wrote a book called "Everything You
Wanted to Know about Developers" which investigated all the popular
formulars of the day. I remember this quote from the book.
". . . where Champlin and his cohorts track the demon Grain to its
lair and smother it with clouds of Nickle Ammonium Sulfate."
Dennis Kibbe
Darkroom Innovations, Inc.
den...@darkroom-innovations.com
JBlance696
NOSPA...@metronet.de (Gerhard May) wrote:
The ISBN for my 1988 copy "Controls in Black and White Printing", Richard
J. Henry is:
0-240-51788-1
ciao for now-
Jon
JBlan...@aol.com
Richard Knoppow
den...@darkroom-innovations.com (Dennis Kibbe) wrote:
I think this may be the book I was thinking about. Lowe was Edwal
Labs, still in business after all these years. I think he was the one
who debunked Champlin's formula.
Charu datt
Richard Knoppow wrote:
> American
> Photography is interesting to read because of its rather concervative
> position on photographic style at a time when the Life Magazine
> journalistic approach was displacing the rather idealized version of
> the pictorialism of Stieglitz that was popular in amateur circles at
> the time. They hated Life with a passion; thought the pictures
> without beauty; too realistic and coarse. Maybe they were but they
> have stood the test of time better than most of the pictorialist
> stuff. I should point out that Edward Weston who might also be
> considered a pictorialist but is _very_ far removed in philosophy and
> practice from the American Photography / Boston Camera Club folks.
> All totally off topic, sorry.
> ---
> Richard Knoppow
Can you expand on the role of the Boston Camera Club?
I've just finished a 3 year stint chairing its portrait group and have
devoted a lot of that time trying to get people to shed the conservative
style that pervades the work there. To this end I changed competition
rules creating a new category of images that disallowed conventional
headshots. I tried to change the name of the group from "portrait" to
"People-Photography" (that was voted down), and I also brought in new
judges. But to get to the point, I always assumed that the conservatism
that pervades that club was a result of laziness reinforced by
competitions that were critiqued by the same group of judges over the
years with the same kinds of comments heard over and over again so many
times that many photographers began believing them or, much worse,
oversimplified the very brief critiques delivered during competitions to
the point of never experimenting out of some imaginary norm.
I would love to hear about the the historical roots of artistic
conservatism in the club.
-Charu
Lee Carmichael
I would think that *artistic conservatism* is an oxymoron. The
governing body that all those camera clubs belong to and have there
charters with, I think, is the problem. I have sat through some of the
most boring presentations. Prisoners of war are not subjected to that
kind of stuff. The whole camera club idea needs to be rethought out.
Down here in Texas, it serves as little more than a bi-monthly meeting
for the slide shooters to look at each others stuff and get some 39 cent
ribbons. Do yourself and your photography a favor and run, do not walk,
as fast as you can from them. It may not be too late.
As usual,
Lee Carmichael
Richard Knoppow
Lee Carmichael <cl...@flash.net> wrote:
Indeed. I have been trying to find some references for Charu but
it has been a long time since I read whatever I read so the brain
cudgeling may take a while. The criticism I read was from the mid or
late 1940's and there was some even earlier. It was precisely as
stated above. This stultifying of artistic endeavor is nothing new.
The salons became a contest for prestige, with images judged for their
conformance to some formula (i.e. dynamic symmetry). The magazine
_American Photography_ which was the inheritor or _Camera Work_ and
other well known early photographic journals became the home base for
the Pictorialist style. One can see the work and read criticism of
the pictures in it and in the _American Photography Annual_ published
for probably forty years. Not all this work is bad, in fact much of
it is interesting, but one soon becomes weary of the ever-present
trite titles which accompiany every picture.
The criticism of the _U.S. Camera Annual_ when it was started
around 1936 is interesting. This annual carried the work of
photogaphers like Ansel Adams, Bernice Abbot, Edward Weston and
others, mostly selected by Edward Steichen. Frank Fraprie, the editor
of American Photgraphy hated it. The images were too realistic, not
artistic, unpleasant, had not decorative value, etc. He did
compliment it on being printed well and opening flat (it has a sprral
binding). It is very interesting to compare and contrast the images
with contemporary American Photography Annuals, you will see why they
reacted so strongly. Another place to find some remarks about the
state of things in the thirties is in Edward Weston's Day Books.
This is now available in a soft cover edition and is worthwhile
reading for anyone who considers photography an art, or at least, an
artistic medium.
BTW, American Photography Magazine has many valuable articles on
alternative printing methods in it as well as some very good technical
articles by Kodak and Agfa/Ansco people. A curious mixture.
Oh, dear, this is much longer than I intended and probably off
subject for this group.
Richard Knoppow
dick...@ix.netcom.com (Richard Knoppow) wrote:
Oh, Dear, I completely forgot to mention the f/64 Group, started
by Weston and others in protest the pictorialist movement. Some
research done on this subject will provide some useful history about
the controversies involved.
Lloyd Erlick
jun1897 from Lloyd Erlick,
I think I'm straying even further from the 'darkroom' here, so I'll
try to keep it brief.
I'm not clear who of the following made which comments about
portraiture at the clubs and salons in history, Lee Carmichael, Charu
Datt, or Richard Knoppow, but I have been very interested.
My darkroom activity is the necessary background of my real activity,
which is portraiture. Hence my presence here. But one of you folks
remarked that you are just finishing a three year stint as chair of
the portraiture section of a major camera club.
I've been looking all over for some sort of organization that brings
together people with interests like mine. Mostly I have found, as one
of you commented, that I must run, not walk, away. Just this morning I
received email responding to my query to a portraiture organization. I
asked if portraitists working in photographic media could join. Maybe
I'm lucky the answer was 'no.'
This newsgroup is by far the best forum I have found, even though this
type of discussion is considered off-topic.
Anyway, I'll close before I run on too long. I'd like to hear more of
the experiences you are talking about, and especially comments on
where a poor wandering portraitist can find a place in 1997!
--le
Lloyd Erlick, 357 Richmond Street West, Toronto m5v1x3 Canada, voice416-596-8751, ll...@the-wire.com, http://www.heylloyd.com
san...@suzy.torolab.ibm.com
Richard Knoppow (dick...@ix.netcom.com) wrote:
: Bodine, ...
: the pictorialism of Stieglitz ...
: Edward Weston ...
: is _very_ far removed in philosophy and
: practice from the American Photography / Boston Camera Club folks.
: All totally off topic, sorry.
If only all off topic stuff was this interesting!
(No need to apologize.)
--
Sandor -- sandor...@prior.ca
Lee Carmichael
I will own up to saying to *run not walk away* from the camera clubs.
Charu Datt spoke about the three year chair of the Camera Club of
Boston. I have had nothing but problems aesthectly for more than twenty
years with them. Most of the members think that the techinques used by
Olin Mills
Studios is art. That may be somewhat unfair but it seems like the
truth.
As usual,
Lee Carmichael