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Thread: Favorite "analogue" paper & why.

  1. #11
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    Re: Favorite "analogue" paper & why.

    Quote Originally Posted by seezee View Post
    Duly noted. Perhaps we should include which film we are printing from in the posts.
    For large format, mostly HP5 Plus here these days. And with that film and making contact prints, I find myself using mostly MG RC Warmtone, sometimes MG RC Cooltone for denser negatives, once in a while something else to solve a special problem.

    PS: Your word choice was fine - your meaning was clear.

  2. #12
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    Re: Favorite "analogue" paper & why.

    I will agree with Oren -- the paper choice comes down to a melding of image, negative qualities, and process/paper to achieve the print one wants. When I am photographing, all three come into play and are equally important to me.

    When I was silver printing, for desert, sea, snow and rock images, I enjoyed the clean (neutral color) look of Ilford Gallery, glossy. For images under the redwoods, I preferred the warm tones (and surface!) of Portriga Rapid 111. Now I make my own print material (alt processes), and generally am thinking in terms of the platinum process or carbon process when photographing. The processes require negatives of different charateristics -- and sometimes I will even expose two negatives and process one for Platinum and one for carbon. But carbon printing reverses the image, so compositionally, that does not always work.
    "Landscapes exist in the material world yet soar in the realms of the spirit..." Tsung Ping, 5th Century China

  3. #13
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    Re: Favorite "analogue" paper & why.

    Drew - when you do your large scale exhibits , do you not find it confusing to the audience to be looking at a smorgasbord of types of papers , tones. I do not understand this thinking of trying to match each image to a paper.

    I have always tried to do a gallery show with consistent print to print so that it hangs together as one body of work.


    Quote Originally Posted by Drew Wiley View Post
    I've never seen anything actually labeled as "analogue" or even "analog" paper. I have no idea what that means. Seems like a nomenclature ploy invented by electronics marketing geeks to make darkroom workers seem like the odd man out, on the defensive. Forget that nonsense. Otherwise, I keep a variety of darkroom papers on hand, and I assume people are talking about b&w papers at the moment. I use the whole suite of Iford FB glossy papers: Ilfobrom Galeries, lots of MGWT, a certain amount of Classic and Cooltone. Have odds n' ends of numerous discontinued papers still on hand, including EMaks graded, Kentmere Fiineprint VC, maybe a bit of Polygrade V left. Plus some matte MGWT. I don't "standardize" on any one thing. I tailor the paper, developer, and toning regimen to specific imagery, but of course pick several related negatives in any given darkroom session to optimize my time and materials.

  4. #14
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    Re: Favorite "analogue" paper & why.

    Quote Originally Posted by Oren Grad View Post
    For me it doesn't make sense to think of a "best" or "favorite" paper, because what works best depends on the match between the paper's characteristic curve and the negative's characteristic curve. So pictures taken on different films and/or recording scenes with very different tonal scales will do best on different papers.

    I try to keep in stock all of the current Ilford Multigrade emulsions - MG IV RC Deluxe, MG RC Warmtone, and MG RC Cooltone, MG FB Classic, MG FB Warmtone and MG FB Cooltone - since each has a different characteristic curve and so is best suited to different negatives. That's a lot of emulsions and so I don't have all of them in all sizes at all times, but that's the basic idea. An important point is that the Ilford RC and FB emulsions are not clones of each other. The RC and FB emulsions within each "pair" - RC Deluxe and FB Classic, RC and FB Cooltone, and RC and FB Warmtone - have quite different tonal scales.

    EDIT: Forgot to add, I don't care that much about paper developers. Generally it's either Ilford PQ Universal or Ilford Multigrade, whichever I can get cheaper in the big 5 L jug.
    I think approaches vary, most likely because of the end goal which may differ quite substantially.

    In my case I'm mostly working on coherent exhibition sets and print everything in a set in a similar way, same paper/developer and ocassionally have to reprint images where my initial interpretation may perhpas not fit well in a sequence despite being my prefferred interpretation as an indivdual print. It's mostly contrast/density rather than any dodging/burning.

    With warm tone papers choice of developer has a big impact and is quite critical so I find your comment odd

    Ian

  5. #15
    Drew Wiley
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    Re: Favorite "analogue" paper & why.

    Absolutely not, Bob. I mix sizes, frame styles, and even color prints with black and white. I even like to put tiny little grainy 35mm prints next to big immaculately
    detailed glossy Cibachromes. Of course, all this is carefully choreographed, with nothing arbitrarily selected or arranged. In fact, I once basically split a public retrospective where the curator himself interspersed, side-by-side, my big rather Zen-ish color Cibas between classic vintage black and white mural prints by
    someone whose first and last initials happen to be the same. The geographic content was similar, but the two ways of looking at things as different as they could be; but the overall effect accentuated both of us. I certainly don't care for cluttered walls like the Victorian fad of pictures everywhere, much less the
    zombified ineractive paintballs wars in current in certain public art venues. But I'm also left a bit cold by the overtly neat bug-collection mentality of many traditional exhibitions. I like to hit viewers at different levels - give them a big arcane subject with a ton a detail in it that has them wondering why the hell someone took and framed that thing in the first place. Then they walk up to a tiny little print beside it, then start noticing the incredible detail in the big one,
    back off and take a second look, get bothered. It grows on them. What I utterly despise, even worse than postcardy stuff, is the instant-gratification "gotcha"
    mentality of advertising photography. Fine for ads, but leave it out of frames. Maybe that not the best strategy for selling things, but if I just wanna sell commodities, I've done that my whole life. The darkroom is for me first, my personal satisfaction, then its up to the viewers to decide if they like something or not.

  6. #16

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    Re: Favorite "analogue" paper & why.

    Quote Originally Posted by seezee View Post
    ...Perhaps we should include which film we are printing from in the posts.
    Some 320TXP, some Delta 100. All sheets, all developed in XTOL (1+1.5 for the 320TXP, 1+3 for the Delta 100).

  7. #17
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    Re: Favorite "analogue" paper & why.

    Quote Originally Posted by Drew Wiley View Post
    Absolutely not, Bob. I mix sizes, frame styles, and even color prints with black and white. I even like to put tiny little grainy 35mm prints next to big immaculately
    detailed glossy Cibachromes. Of course, all this is carefully choreographed, with nothing arbitrarily selected or arranged. In fact, I once basically split a public retrospective where the curator himself interspersed, side-by-side, my big rather Zen-ish color Cibas between classic vintage black and white mural prints by
    someone whose first and last initials happen to be the same. The geographic content was similar, but the two ways of looking at things as different as they could be; but the overall effect accentuated both of us. I certainly don't care for cluttered walls like the Victorian fad of pictures everywhere, much less the
    zombified ineractive paintballs wars in current in certain public art venues. But I'm also left a bit cold by the overtly neat bug-collection mentality of many traditional exhibitions. I like to hit viewers at different levels - give them a big arcane subject with a ton a detail in it that has them wondering why the hell someone took and framed that thing in the first place. Then they walk up to a tiny little print beside it, then start noticing the incredible detail in the big one,
    back off and take a second look, get bothered. It grows on them. What I utterly despise, even worse than postcardy stuff, is the instant-gratification "gotcha"
    mentality of advertising photography. Fine for ads, but leave it out of frames. Maybe that not the best strategy for selling things, but if I just wanna sell commodities, I've done that my whole life. The darkroom is for me first, my personal satisfaction, then its up to the viewers to decide if they like something or not.
    Drew once again I am flummoxed by your post. San Fran must be an eclectic place , We are quite boring here in the East with our approach.

  8. #18
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    Re: Favorite "analogue" paper & why.

    Quote Originally Posted by IanG View Post
    I think approaches vary, most likely because of the end goal which may differ quite substantially.

    In my case I'm mostly working on coherent exhibition sets and print everything in a set in a similar way, same paper/developer...
    This is a good point, and similarly Bob's concern about exhibiting. I might do the same, depending on what I was intending to show.

  9. #19
    Drew Wiley
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    Re: Favorite "analogue" paper & why.

    Bob, I even pull these kinds of stunts on architectural advice. People spend stunning sums of money refinishing old homes with all their now nonexistent old cuts
    of redwood or hardwoods. It is utterly impossible to make this kind of project look like boring formica when they get done. Live with the character of the flaws,
    luxuriate in them, and when that doesn't work, throw a coffee table into the room made from an utterly unrelated wood species, distinct and complementary yet not clashing. That pulls everything together. Or throw up some gorgeous bright seashell into an alcove. I wouldn't call it eclectic. I call it comparison, weighing one thing against another, just like a good chef would do. Gotta keep the taste buds cleansed and refreshed. Chase your wine with something else before tasting another sample. OK, OK, go ahead with another California stereotype if you wish, but yeah, there is a lot of wine and cheese around here, a lot of microbrew ale
    too.

  10. #20
    Recovering Leica Addict seezee's Avatar
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    Re: Favorite "analogue" paper & why.

    It seems to me there's more than one valid approach for curating an exhibit, but as interesting as the discussion is, it's veering off-topic. Time, perhaps, for a new thread?
    "Never try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and annoys the pig."

    seezee at Mercury Photo Bureau
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    seezee's day-job at Messenger Web Design

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