Caponigro print quality

[Barry Kirsten]

Like many members I really enjoyed the View Camera feature on Paul Caponigro's work - wonderful images and beautifully printed! It led me to search out more info on his technique. To my surprise I could find very little technical info, except that he does not use digital processes at all.

I'm wondering what is know on the forum of Caponigro's methods? Also any relevant thoughts might be helpful. I for one am always challenged by great work and am sure I could learn more from these images if I understood more about his methods.

Thanks,

Baz.

[Merg Ross]

Like many members I really enjoyed the View Camera feature on Paul Caponigro's work - wonderful images and beautifully printed! It led me to search out more info on his technique. To my surprise I could find very little technical info, except that he does not use digital processes at all.

I'm wondering what is know on the forum of Caponigro's methods? Also any relevant thoughts might be helpful. I for one am always challenged by great work and am sure I could learn more from these images if I understood more about his methods.

Thanks,

Baz.

When I met Paul in Boston in 1959 he was already a master printer. I have a print he gave me that year printed on Kodak Medalist paper; it is exquisite. Unlike photographers who have chosen to standardize their method (for instance, Pyro, Amidol, Azo) Paul chooses materials and chemicals to suit a particular mood. Over the years he has used many different films, papers and developers. I could name some of them. However, that would not be a help to anyone trying to make a Paul Caponigro print.

I have always considered Paul as a darkroom chef; a pinch here, a pinch there, until the taste was right; in his case the tone, mood, and of course the initial composition. True, there is nothing digital in his process.

[Brian Ellis]

IMHO printing, whether in a darkroom or digitally, isn't a matter of knowing how to do things, it's knowing what to do. Anyone can learn the techniques used by master printers, especially darkroom techniques since there's so relatively few of them. The reason people like Paul Caponigro are great printers isn't that they have techniques others don't or that they use materials or techniques in some unique way. It's that they have a clear vision of what they want the print to look like to achieve their expressive goals for it. Once that's known the easy part (from a creative standpoint, not necessarily from a physical standpoint) is doing it.

If Paul Caponigro was standing next to you in a darkroom while you printed one of your negatives, and told you exactly what the print should look like in every detail, with any experience at all I'm sure you would know how to go about making the print look that way. The catch is that it takes experience, effort, and most importantly talent that not everyone possesses, to know what it is that needs to be done.

Which isn't to disparage your question, it's always interesting to know the materials and methods that great printers use. But you asked for thoughts and IMHO it would be a mistake to think that knowing Paul Caponigro's materials or techniques would help very much in making prints like his (if in fact that's what you had in mind in asking the question, which it may not have been).

[jp]

In the back of his New England Days book, there is an index of the print type the image was made from. It's not very descriptive, but it does support Merg's statement that he has used a variety of now traditional materials/techniques.

[Richard Wasserman]

I have seen many of Paul Caponigro's prints, and am always awed by them. I think Merg's analogy of him as a chef is a good one. although I would use dance as my comparison, specifically ballet. It takes a great deal of practice and strength to dance en pointe and appear weightless.

[Ken Lee]

... isn't a matter of knowing how to do things, it's knowing what to do.

Exactly - It's a matter of developing one's aesthetic sense: good taste, insight, inspiration.

[Merg Ross]

For his technique, there are hints contained in this old thread:

http://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?t=45594&highlight=caponigro

or, rather than wade through the entire thread, here are the nuts and bolts of Paul's approach to printing:

http://www.steveanchell.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=60&Itemid=98

[Drew Wiley]

A lot of his older prints were done in ardol, which was warmer and softer than dektol, but not greatly different from selectol soft. I'd call a lot of his work deliberately understated, and of more interest in terms of subject and nuance than print impact. Nowadays it would be much easier to obtain the same kind of effects with high-quality modern VC papers. I'm sure he used graded back then. Don't have any idea what he's currently using.

[Mark Sawyer]

My own experience is that the most important part of making a masterful print is to make a masterful negative. While I've never seen one of his negatives (and I'd really love too), Caponigro must be among the very best.

After that, the rest is (relatively) easy. But make a lousy negative and you're lost before you take the photo paper out of the box...

[Bruce Barlow]

He uses a variant of democratic photography: "The Eyes Have It."

[Merg Ross]

My own experience is that the most important part of making a masterful print is to make a masterful negative. While I've never seen one of his negatives (and I'd really love too), Caponigro must be among the very best.

Good point. Paul will tell you that he learned much of his technique from Benjamen Chinn in San Francisco.

He wrote of their friendship shortly after Benjamen's death a few years ago.

http://www.photography.org/newsarticles/chinn.php

[tautatis]

I think weare jumping ahead of the process here. The quality of a print is determined by the negative. How you print is influenced by the composition and vision of the final image you would like to see. I am a strong beliver of the process before you trip the shutter - the rest is history. Of course, printing is also a skill, but making a printerable negative is to my view an extremely important and basic aspect of image making.

[Barry Kirsten]

IMHO printing, whether in a darkroom or digitally, isn't a matter of knowing how to do things, it's knowing what to do. Anyone can learn the techniques used by master printers, especially darkroom techniques since there's so relatively few of them. The reason people like Paul Caponigro are great printers isn't that they have techniques others don't or that they use materials or techniques in some unique way. It's that they have a clear vision of what they want the print to look like to achieve their expressive goals for it. Once that's known the easy part (from a creative standpoint, not necessarily from a physical standpoint) is doing it.

If Paul Caponigro was standing next to you in a darkroom while you printed one of your negatives, and told you exactly what the print should look like in every detail, with any experience at all I'm sure you would know how to go about making the print look that way. The catch is that it takes experience, effort, and most importantly talent that not everyone possesses, to know what it is that needs to be done.

Which isn't to disparage your question, it's always interesting to know the materials and methods that great printers use. But you asked for thoughts and IMHO it would be a mistake to think that knowing Paul Caponigro's materials or techniques would help very much in making prints like his (if in fact that's what you had in mind in asking the question, which it may not have been).

Thanks Brian for your comments; I appreciate them and found them quite thought-provoking, hence the delay in my reply. (I'm still not sure how I will respond, but here goes, anyway.)

Firstly, are there really only a few techniques in print production? I would have thought there are many when we consider the processes involved in producing a fine print. Caponigro himself referred to his 'bags full' of techniques (Anchell interview). At the moment I am trying to get my head around serious digital printing for the first time and am amazed at the steep learning curve. However when I reflect on it, I think it's about as difficult to master as darkroom printing, only different - lots to know and many techniques to learn. I think it's valuable to ask how others practice the photographic craft, as many do on this forum.

As to clear vision, I have no problem in that area. Like many people I know what a fine print looks like and what I want in any particular print, but achieving that is not always easy. Recently returning to photography after 8 years devoted to study, I look back over my old negs and prints and am horrified at some of my previous work. Perhaps the lay-off has helped sharpen my critical eye, and that's a good thing. So I'm more determined than ever to do better work. And if I was previously limited by lack of knowledge and technique, I think it's valid to consider what others do.

It's an interesting idea considering Paul Caponigro standing beside you as you print one of your own negatives... Would I really know what to do if he told me that the blacks had to be black-black, yet retain a hint of detail here and there; that the mid-tones would be rich and detailed, extending up to the highlights, which themselves would be silky smooth without any burnout? These things I know myself to pursue, but achieving them is another matter. I might know what I should try to do, but I'm only a part-timer and don't have the knowledge and continuous experience of the half-dozen papers and several developers that Paul regularly works with, and the result would be very hit and miss.

Brian, you're probably quite right in saying that we don't benefit much by copying the methods of others. However I think the principal of 'every little helps' is valid. Caponigro himself speaks against the predictability of the Zone System which can lead to all prints looking the same. God forbid that we should all try to emulate any particular photographer's work, but learning and trying some of their tricks ourself can hopefully be of benefit.

My 2 cents worth. Thanks again Brian, and thanks to others also for your thoughts.

Barry.