Reinterpretation
Friday, July 29, 2016
In my many years (1963-2016) with a darkroom I went through many shifts
in style, particularly when I printed my negatives. I first thought high contrast
was best for impact. Then I swung in the opposite direction and opted for
getting all those shades of gray and detail in the near blacks. And these
prints I sometimes printed dark and at other times not so much. With my b+w
negatives I went in the same two directions but in the end settled with as many
continuous tones I could muster and avoided extreme contrast.
What this means to the average person examining a photograph
printed by a photographer is that you will mostly never see two the same unless
the photographer happens to have printed them one after the other on the same
day.
The intentions of a photographer at one time would have
been more evident in the examination of a 35mm slide or a bigger one (called a
transparency). Then the only variation of that unique (original to stress the
word) image would be in its reproduction as a printed image.
With my darkroom now history in our new Kitsilano duplex I
find myself doing the very same that I did before which is to re-interpret
myself. This time the tool is the scanner combined with Photoshop. I have a
very old Photoshop but it has that invaluable tool called Shadow/Highlight. If
I play with it particularly in RGB (not in LAB where there is little if any
colour variation) the results can be most interesting.
Some time ago I wrote here about Mónica Salvatella. I
illustrated the blog with an interpretation I have varied here. I am pleasantly
surprised with the possibilities.
