From: TERRY KING, 101522,2625
TO: Beakman, INTERNET:beakman@netcom.com
DATE: 14/06/96 10:32
RE: Copy of: Re: Copy of: Re: physiology vs. sensitometry
Hi David
You are quite right.
My earlier posting was the result of my allowing, just for a moment, semantics
to overcome the evidence of my own eyes and practice.
Ever since I made my first print where self masking allowed one to use straight
line negatives with a wide range of tones, I have been convinced that the best
method is to use an in camera negative so that one has no need either to enlarge
or to 'expand or compress' the tones to get the maximum amount of information
onto the print in terms of tonal range and gradation.
The proof of the pudding has been in the eating.Self masking prints produced in
this way from scenes of wide brightness range have better gradation and tonality
than either self masking prints made from expanded negatives intended for silver
gelatine or the silver gelatine prints themselves made from negatives intended
for silver gelatine printing. As you say subtleties of gradation are lost when
expanding and contracting negatives. The loss is inherent in the expansion or
contraction process and is related to the linearity of the curves at the toe and
shoulder. Such loss is often not noticeable in silver gelatine prints because
the process is not inherently capable of recording that subtlety but that does
not imply that the loss is not there.
We are not talking here of ideal brightness ranges for silver gelatine where the
film can be exposed to give the ideal range with development in the ideal
developer to give the ideal print.
We have a number of dificulties:
There are people who believe that to try to get the most out of a process means
that one is more concerned with the process than the end product.. There are
people who work in this way and they are the equivalent of the cameras as male
jewellery brigade and those who have an ideal darkroom and never make a print.
But to infer that someone who wishes to achieve the best technically has no
creative ability or even intent is illogical to the extent that one is tempted
to infer a lack of ability on the part of the accusers.
There are those who regard the zone system as a religion and Ansel Adams as a
prophet. As people have been adjusting exposures and development to suit the
print since well before Ansel Adams was born it is hardly heresy to suggest that
exposing for the shadows and developing for the highlights is not the zone
system. It is undeniable that the zone system was aimed at silver gelatine
printing. It is also manifest that its methods do not produce the best self
masking prints. The difficulty is that the zone system's exponents are so bound
up in its coils that they cannot escape.
Thirdly we have those who seem to think that it should all fall into our hands
as manna from heaven and that technical ability and knowledge are part of a
conspiracy to deny them their right to put their badly seen, exposed, developed
and printed 'photographs' before us. They forget that photography is a means of
communication. As they do not communicate they fade away.
This does not imply that every photograph has to be sharp and have fine
gradation across the full range of tones.
Incidentally, as a corollary to Barny's point, Emerson left photography because
he did not understand that it is possible to adjust tones. But his pictures are
quite good and many have neither a full range of tones or F64 sharpness !
This whole debate started when I asked whether a print that showed more than one
could see at the time detracted from the aesthetic of the scene as seen. In the
case of the Stoke by Neyland photograph I thought that rendering more tones in
the print, because they were there on the negative, detracted from the mystery.
That was the point that interested me; the loss of mystery.
Unfortunately a number of experts told me that I was talking nonsense as the
retina is far more sensitive than film I could not possibly have seen what I
saw. Firstly that was not the point and, secondly, they had forgotten the action
of the pupil in controlling contrast levels and indirectly protecting the
retina.
As you say the answer was obvious. But, sometimes when people one is in the
habit of listening to because one can expect to hear something worthwhile, miss
the point completely and make false assumption, one goes along with them until
someone outside points out that one is on a hiding to nothing. When I allow
things like to happen I realise that I would never have got through air crew
training.
I dropped my defences for a moment of never making assumptions without testing
them and never trusting anyone or anything one reads in books (without
confirmation from experience and other sources).
Myself I was grateful for your comments.
I think it would be useful to copy yours and my comments to the list
Thanks again
Terry