Last summer a friend and I took some photographs of the interior of Stoke by
Neyland Church in the Stour valley on the Suffolk/Essex border. The church is
about seven hundred years old. If you remember Constable landscapes, it is the
church whose tower appears so often in the distance rising above the trees.
Photographically the interiors of churches are often challenging in terms of
texture,tonal range,spatial relationships and so on.
It is how the photographer makes use of these factors, in conjunction with the
associated cultural and historical connotations, in the making of the
photograph, that will determine, to a major extent, whether the final print is
just a record of the interior of the church, or is something exciting to look at
in itself.
The last paragraph was for those who consider that an 'art' photograph should
not concern itself with things that are 'pre modern'.
My friend was working with a 5 x 4 using HP 5 Plus which was developed in PMK
and printed onto Multigrade Pearl as a proof. His print resulted from a great
deal of carefully planned dodging and burning in. It showed fine detail in the
shadows. It was beautifully made.
In fact he had set his tripod up in the same position as mine after I had taken
my photograph. We were both using Super Angulon lenses with a similar angle of
view.
My photograph was taken on 10 x 8 FP 4 two stops over exposed with 1 1/2 times
the normal development in amidol. The intention was to produce a negative
suitable for the way in which I print Pt/Pd. The negative has density range of
2.1 and the print shows sixteen steps on a Stouffer step wedge. With no dodging
and no burning in the contact print reproduces so far as I was able the light as
I remember it. There is detail in the whitewashed walls at steps 15 & 16 and in
the door under the arch below the tower, well in the shadows on steps 2 & 3.
There is good gradation and subtle rendering of the middle tones. The print is
made on sized Fabriano Artistico HOT 300 gsm.
In the original scene it was necessary to go into the shadows to see the
details. In the Pt/Pd print one has to mask off the whitewash to see the detail,
an exercise analogous to the experience and perception of the original scene. In
the multigrade print the shadows have been substantially lightened to show the
detail , in fact a marked compression of the tonal range to the extent that the
print does not reflect the reality of the scene.
In what way would one make a comparison between the two prints? Is one comparing
like with like? Or would one be trying to compare apples with oranges ? Should
one adopt a different set of values in assessing the prints. In other words is
there a platinum aesthetic that differs from the silver gelatine aesthetic ? Or
is it just a matter of printing styles and personal preference ?
Terry King