The negative isn’t dead yet
It seems that things have come full-circle with the concept of making a negative from a digital image. As shown in the following video (see link, below), this is a fascinating concept, and I would love to attend a workshop such as the ones offered by Eastman House some time. In particular, I like the idea of using a large negative made from a digital image to experiment with some of the older printing techniques, such as the carbon printing (carbro) method.
Printing is part of photography too
I think that printing as part of photography is often neglected compared with the actual composition and taking of the photograph.
Recently, I have been reading a book about Australian photographer Olive Cotton. Cotton was very skilled in her use of light, and I recently posted an example of her work. The book described how Cotton in her later years spent two days each week at her dark room printing old and new negatives.*
In describing how Cotton took advantage of her later years (after she had stopped taking clients) to print negatives, the book makes an interesting observation:
“But photography offers a generous deferment to those who, for whatever reason, need time to unite the two component parts of taking the negative and making the print”
With digital photography, are we too often forgetting the second component part of photography … or at best, outsourcing it? It is perhaps ironic that digital photography has made the printing process easier and much faster, and yet the printing aspect of photography is often neglected.
Ansel Adams, who trained as a concert pianist, before embarking on a photography career, likened the taking of a negative to composing a piece of music, and the printing he likened to a performance of the music. Within certain constraints set by the composition, each performance of the music can vary.
The printing part of photographic art can be tedious, but it is tremendously rewarding and should not be neglected by photographers.
* Source: “Olive Cotton Photographer”, National Library of Australia, 1995, p1.
Confusion
I currently have a couple of my images in a photography show. One of the images of Dissipating Memories of a Transitory Life. From what I have hear, the image has caused various confusion for people who have visited the photography show. Some people thought the image was a painting. Someone thought the picture was taken from under water. Someone thought that a “regular” image had been manipulated in Photoshop to create the water effect. In reality (if you haven’t guessed), it’s an image of a reflection in the San Antonio River. I quite enjoy the different reactions of the image.
- Dissipating Memories of a Transitory Life (2014)
Tea Cup Ballet: A remarkable use of light
This stunning image by Australian photographer Olive Cotton uses light beautifully. This image was made in 1935. Cotton composed this photo in her studio one day after work using a set of new cheap tea cups.
“Olive Cotton – Tea cup ballet, 1935” by Olive Cotton – Tea cup ballet at the Art Gallery of New South Wales.
Licensed under Public domain via Wikimedia Common [URL]
Ernst Haas: Color, motion, and creativity
I love the work of Ernst Haas. He was a pioneer of color in photography often combined with experimental techniques.
Haas was born to artistic parents in Vienna, Austria in 1921, and a student he became a skilled painter. His father was a keen amateur photographer, but Ernst had no interest in photography until after his father’s death. He began to use his father’s darkroom to print negatives of family photographs, and his interest in photography quickly grew.
Haas moved to the United States in 1951 and began experimenting with Kodachrome color film. His work was published in many notable magazines. His photo essay on New York City published in Life magazine in 1953 was his first major color essay, and also Life’s first large-scale color essay.
Saul Leiter: Color, reflections, and transparency
This second article on color photographers looks at the work of Saul Leiter. His color urban landscape work in New York in the 1950s is truly remarkable for its composition and for his early use of color at a time when black-and-white was considered the only medium for artistic photography.
Leiter was born in December 1923 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Leiter’s father was a Talmudic scholar, and he also studied to become a rabbi. Unhappy in Pittsburgh, he moved to New York to become an artist. Initially focused on painting, he became drawn to photography. Edward Steichen included some of Leiter’s early black-and-white photographs in an exhibition titled “Always the Stranger” at the New York Museum of Modern Art. Leiter recalled that his images were just tacked to the walls, and not beautifully framed as images are exhibited now.
Ansel Adams: Master of the darkroom
Last year, I attended a lecture given by California photographer John Sexton, a former assistant and associate to Ansel Adams. In his lecture, he recalled an example of working with Adams in the darkroom where Adams was attempting to print a negative he had taken approximately 50 years earlier. Over the intervening decades, he had tried printing the negative but had never been satisfied with the results. Over the course of several days of working 3-4 hours a day on the image in the darkroom, Adams finally achieved a print he was happy with. Sexton recalled Adams beaming to have finally produced a successful print from the negative taken 50 years earlier.
I find this such an inspirational story for a couple of reasons. The story inspires me because of Adams’ passion for his work and his perseverance of working on an image over a period of 50 years before getting a satisfactory result. But the story also inspires me because it reminds us how much darkroom work that Adams did on his images. In his lecture Sexton even showed a before and after comparison of one of Adam’s images, and the results were dramatic. Of course, Ansel Adams photography was dramatic and he achieved much of the drama in the dark room. The analogy that Adams used was that capturing the image on camera was like composing a musical work, and printing the image was a performance of that music. It’s a great analogy.