Originally Posted by Hugo Zhang
"Landscapes exist in the material world yet soar in the realms of the spirit..." Tsung Ping, 5th Century China
Durst - lots of those early contact prints just won't hold up well under enlargement due to how the area of black which worked at a smaller scale just becomes blanked out area in larger scale. It have often noticed that discrepancy in Morley Baer's work - something was just off when the exposure and development was optimized for Azo contact printing, and then the same image got enlarged to 16X20 too. Was looking at an example of that yesterday. Brett Weston was an exemption due to his graphic skill with bold blank black. But his own father wasn't.
I was also in the process of trying to plot a relatively safe route into remote Milestone Basin for my friends' backpacking trip in another month (wish I could go too, but at 74, it's just too lengthy and strenuous for me now). And I knew AA had taken a few pictures in there, but was curious, and found images taken in the same place much earlier when he was 21, and was still experimenting with a soft focus lens even in the mountains. Compelling little poetic prints, but that kind of thing doesn't hold up well enlarged either.
I think it's easier the other way around - expose and develop for a versatile negative, usable for both enlargement and contact printing, especially given today's excellent VC papers applicable to both styles. But I realize UV printers have their own parameters to contend with, and that my approach might not be so suitable for them.
I’m quite confident if the people who rave about those old contact prints didn’t know they were contact prints they’d say they were mediocre enlargements.
Depends on the exact prints, Michael. Some were no doubt very modest enlargements done later on. But a version of the same scene shot in the 1930's by AA in more of the relatively crisp style he is known for, and printed a little bigger, despite the graininess of films of that day, gets listed for around ten times the price of the older little fuzzy-lens version. If Steichen had done it instead, the pricing might be the other way around. AA had a good eye for composition, but really wasn't quite up to speed with technique at all in his early 20's. And I presume his camera at the time was comparatively miserable too. George Fiske was one the most prominent Yosemite photographers before, but lots of his prints have faded badly over time. A week ago, I drove past a gallery which once specialized in Fiske, but now it's shut for good. I doubt the owner is even still alive.
And as far as Morley Baer goes, at least from all of his work I've personally seen, he was a much better at contact printing than he was at enlarging. And his color prints were commercially done.
I have been having fun using the tiny little 4x5 again for 4x5 carbon prints. I have found what you said to be true and also with areas of pure white. Well-balanced at 4x5, but would not hold up at 16x20.
"Landscapes exist in the material world yet soar in the realms of the spirit..." Tsung Ping, 5th Century China
Well, my favorite shot of all time of El Cap is Muybridge's pale silvery on white one - mammoth plate contact from a blue-sensitive emulsion, with a blank sky. Gives it an a sense of monumentality and atmosphere. My own best El Cap shot was taken high up edge-on from atop an ice cone with my Sinar 4X5 during falling snow, and has a blank white sky. It prints well up to 20X24. I admire a lot of that old blue plate work. But there has to be a strategy to it, and not just mimicry.
Watkins was a master of pale skies. But I don't know how well Fiske's work would hold up, since he mostly sold tiny contact prints from blue-sensitive blank-sky days, but wonderfully composed. He had a wonderful eye, but never became a photographic superstar like Watkins. And my gosh, Watkins knew how to print too.
It’s worth noting that I was not comparing the very early Adams contact prints to enlargements of the same negative. They were very early contact prints that at least to my knowledge Adams never enlarged. I have certainly never seen enlargements of them anywhere (even in rare books).
I was comparing the impact of these obscure, very early contact prints to the impact of even Adams’ most celebrated enlarged prints. And I am saying, God as my witness, the intense sublimity of one of the contact prints (the one that brought tears to my eyes) eclipsed even his more contemporary enlargements of famous images. This fact (true at least to my own sensibilities) made me wonder quite seriously why Adams did not make mostly contact prints or at least many more. I was compelled to ask myself this question with real interest because it’s very hard for me to imagine that Adams himself did not also recognize and understand what he was capable of achieving with a contact print. Let me put this impression another way. These early contact prints closed the small gap between Weston and Adams for me. Some of Weston’s prints would indeed look a bit like enlargements compared to them. It very strangely turned out that my encounter with these very early Adams contact prints was astonishing and totally unexpected confirmation of my excited and impetuous reaction to my own first contact print (which I mentioned in my first post), namely that if Adams had it within himself to make a masterpiece enlargement, then he had it within himself to make an even greater contact print. Enlargement plainly involves sacrifice.
Another somewhat similar experience contributed to my interest in ULF as a valuable way of making large photographs without sacrificing the power of a contact print. Clearing Winter Storm is my favorite Adams photograph. I was once so captivated by an 8x10 contact print of the image that I did not even notice the 16 x 20 (I think) enlargement hanging right above it until the gallerist brought it to my attention. The contact print had that kind of eclipsing power.
Hugo’s 8x10 contact prints apparently possessed something of that same eclipsing power, too, when they earned a first prize against more ambitious productions.
I simply see ULF as an especially valuable way to preserve the integrity and power of the contact print while making larger photographs. It really is quite axiomatic that enlargements exaggerate deficiencies or vulnerabilities of any kind in any negative. And to be sure, some negatives do not hold up well at all to enlargement. But these are reasons to make contact prints –not to dismiss them –and to struggle to find ways of preserving the sublimity of a contact print in larger photographs.
Last edited by Durst L184; 29-Jul-2023 at 10:35.
Art is true of all times. If one must call a work contemporary, then it's propaganda.
I don't think you'll get much argument around here that contact prints aren't sublime. And if you want bigger contact prints, you'll need to use bigger film. Did I miss something?
Read Drew Wiley. He made some interesting remarks in response to my articulation of reasons for my interest in ULF. The thread of course is a real enough query about the value ("real untility") of using bigger film as you put it. But I certainly share your perplexity that anyone might take strong exception to the principle of preserving the sublimity of a contact print by using larger film to make larger photographs -- or even question the principle for that matter.
Art is true of all times. If one must call a work contemporary, then it's propaganda.
Drew's workflow is to make enlargements. That is how he wants his work presented (to whom I don't know). Different people have different objectives with their photography. Pursue yours.
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