Weston's enlarged negatives

[pat krentz]

If Cole is still alive has anyone thought of asking him? Pat

[mark lindsey]

here is the weston website, ask away....

http://www.edward-weston.com/

[david clark]

Hi everyone, OK I can understand the possibility of taping a 3*4 to a window and photographing it onto film. My question is what kind of lens would you need to do that. His 8*10 is a Korona, and so I'm thinking 30" of bellows. So what kind of lens and how do you use it to enlarge from 3*4 to 8*10? Thanks, David

[M.]

David, you make a good point, which hadn't occured to me. The standard lens for a 3x4 Graflex was a 6 3/8" Tessar design, excellent for copying, which I'm sure could be mounted on the 8x10 for high magnification.

[david clark]

Hi Bill, do you know the math to figure out if the 6" lens will project 3*4 onto 8*10 with 30" of bellows or is this something we have to sit up and test? If he did use this method, it seems like he could have done some fine tuning on the image during this process. I've seen some of the original 3*4 prints in the Weston Archives in the George Eastman House collection. These photos would be like his personal snap shot collection. For instance there is a Graflex contact of Rivera. I've also seen Tina Modotti's photos in the Eastman House, and those are Graflex contact prints, very small photos. So whatever process he was using to enlarge, they weren't carrying on the process to her work and I wonder if this is because it was labor intensive? Best, David

[M.]

David, a 6 3/8 lens on a 30" bellows will give a reproductin ratio of 3.7. My goodness that must have been tricky!

[Jim Galli]

Either lens turned around backwards on the 8X10 would've worked.

[M.]

Almost, but not quite. A 10" lens with 30" bellows only has a 2X reproduction ratio, about 6.5x8.5". I believe that his shortest lens for the Korona was an 11" Rapid Rectilinear. The enlarged negatives must have been a real pain; wonder why he didn't just buy an enlarger for the 3x4?

[david clark]

Well, my guess is that he had way more time on his hands than he had money. I could see where he could have rented a photographer's darkroom-enlarger to make the positives. That's a possiblity, but he seems like the 'do-it-yourself' kind of guy who would like to be self sufficient. He was the master of elegant solutions to technical problems, and he certainly wasn't affraid of hard work, and that's why it seems to me maybe he did it with materials on hand. I think I read where Modotti had a 4*5, so that could be a factor? Maybe he used a camera as an enlarger? Best, David

[kthompson]

Hey...I've been following this for awhile and I just wanted to say that people still do make duplicate negs this way more or less....now I'm not sure how Weston made his (and it's not really that important to me), but let me ask you all this question: Where are his original negs? If he were making interpositives of his smaller negs, and then contacting these to make the final negs....then the interpositives would be valuable as well. Generally, the positive becomes the "master" and the duplicate negs become the working negs in this case. The positive is usually alot denser than you'd think...it's rather chunky and would look dark if you viewed it. Now, maybe he didn't do it this way, or maybe he didn't care & threw them all away...who knows? For a long time though, in commercial & portrait photography, this was a regular technique. Nowadays, it seems to be only done in duplicating old glass plates & negs.