Print. A lot. Take chances. Make mistakes. Learn from them. Fill up the trash can. Experiment. Never be satisfied.
Print. A lot. Take chances. Make mistakes. Learn from them. Fill up the trash can. Experiment. Never be satisfied.
Practice.
Incident metering at the camera.
Beseler pm2l meter for the enlarger.
Practice is the most important piece.
What the two meters do for me is give me great reference points so when I make a change I can understand what I did.
You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus. ~ Mark Twain
Beyond the Zone System by Phil Davis. For the first time I understood the relationship between negative and paper. My printing was forever better after that.
Peter Gomena
Going step by step through a whole print with brian unwin. Nobody beats the brizz
One might not remember every lesson that takes you to “the next level.”
That’s why I take notes about “lessons learned” – and even organize them into a journal.
Better, the lessons I write down (and therefore think about) often lead to additional lessons that may not have occurred to me.
Yes, all those things.Originally Posted by AF-ULF
Understanding BTZS and calibrating exposure and development so I can focus on composition and pre visualization.
F stop printing using an RH Designs timer and doing a proper dry down test.
Experimenting with split grade printing helped me get a better idea of what I could get out of a particular negative. I don't do it anymore but I learned a lot by trying it.
Settling on one film/developer and paper/developer.
Making a lot of mistakes. At this point, I am not sure what else I can screw up...
Oh, and a little bleaching here and there.
Sirius mentioned the great Per Volquartz...absolutely agree. Even if you didn't take a class with him, even one hour at lunch was a gift to be savored. Per was a wonderful mentor to me, as is Domenico Foschi and I've learned so much from them, not always in answers to my questions, but they allow you to find your own answers and that is the greatest gift.
Bob Carnie speaks at length about getting better over on the APUG forum somewhere. Try to find it...basically it's just doing and doing. Keep printing and printing...10,000 hours to mastery (I'd say the beginning of mastery...)
Get the Fred Picker video from Calumet and follow it step by step.
Thomas
Fred Picker seems to elicit a lot of reactions from people. He was before my time. But I agree the video was very good. Of course practicing helps, but practicing with a purpose and knowledge helps a lot. I remember another post where people were listing good resources for information. Here is a list of resources currently available:
The Fred Picker video/DVD from Calumet
The Print by Ansel
Way Beyond Monochrome by Ralph Lambrecht
beyond the Zone System by Phil Davis
The Art of Photography by Bruce Barnbaum
How (or Why?, I forget) Prints Work
The Basic Techniques of Photography Book 1 by Ansel Adams
Post Exposure by Ctein
The Master Printer's Notebook by Macleod
Finely Focused, a PDF book by Bruce Barlow
The DMAX newsletter available on DVD from The View Camera Store
The Zone VI Newsletter (I don't have those but heard they are worthwhile and available used)
The Toning Book by Tim Rudman
I have not done many workshops (4 days worth) but they are helpful both for the information that you learn, but also for the value of seeing how others work and think through a print.
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