The Darkroom from Wet to Dry
Wednesday, April 11, 2018
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| Beneath the Chickering - Fuji Instant Film FP-3000B January 9, 2018 |
There is a
lingering memory that I have treasured all these years about projecting a b+w
negative with an enlarger on photographic paper and then inserting into a tray
of developer. Then to see that image slowly emerge was thrilling magic. Since
that event, 1961, to about two years ago I never lost my thrill for working in
my darkroom. The smells of chemicals never bothered me and the magic was always
there.
As a
magazine photographer (I began around 1977) I always processed my b+w film and
printed the 8x10s that art directors wanted from me. The idea of depending on a
lab to interpret my negative was anathema.
Then
magazines started demanding colour. I shot Ektachromes and Kodachromes. These
originals were then made into was then called colour separations which were
then printed onto magazine pages.
One art
director, in particular, Chris Dahl (an artist in his own right) one day said
this to me, “You always print your b+ws to your own satisfaction. I want you to
print, now, colour negatives, big ones, at least 11x14inches using all those
burn and dodge techniques you use for b+w. Since I already knew how to print
slides and colour negatives this was not that much of a chore but a chore it
was.
Two years
ago a few weeks before we moved to our present Kitsilano duplex my darkroom
flooded. Before it did I was printing as much stuff as possible using every
available package of paper that I had at my disposal. The flood cemented in my
mind that my darkroom days were over. I grieved.
That grief
did not last all that long. In the interim I have been shooting lots of
discontinued Fuji Instant Film in b+w and in colour. This film fits my old
Mamiya Polaroid back. The results I scan. Because these scans are digital files
there really is no practical way of printing them in what we used to call a wet
darkroom (even wet before a flood!).
I have had
for some years an excellent flatbed scanner that scans photographs, slides and
negatives (and my plant scans!). It is an Epson Perfection V700 Photo. Not far
from it is a Canon Pro-1 inkjet printer (prints up to 13 by 19 inches)
suggested by Jeff Gin from Leo’s Camera on Granville.
This is what I have discovered. There is a thrill at seeing my photograph on my Dell Cathode Ray Tube Monitor (accurately calibrated it is) and then press print and get (after a few delaying minutes) a print that is exactly like the one on the monitor.
The
photographs I take with both my Fuji X-E1 and X-E3 and with my dedicated,
camera only iPhone3G could never be printed in that wet lab. I have adapted to
the times.
But I must
now interject something that perhaps is not known by too many people.
In times
past photographers like Ansel Adams or Edward Weston would sign in pencil the
back of their photographs. What this meant was that the print was printed by
the photographer who took the photograph.
I am having
a show in Buenos Aires at the Vermeer Gallery in the first weeks of September
of this year. All my inkjets will be signed in pencil in the back.
Tradition
persists even if it has been modified.
Addendum: I print with only one kind of paper, Hahnemüle Fine Art Bamboo Natural Warm Tone. In my magazine days I always went for accuracy and I used photographic paper that gave me absolute whites and blacks that were black because I dipped my prints in Kodak Selenium Toner (a known carcinogen. At age 75 I may be a lucky man). But now with age I prefer not a stark white but a warm tone one. I like the heft (290 GSM). Prints look like the real McCoy. And they are!
