Contact printing 5x7 & 4x5 with specific requirements- HABS + HAER photographer

[mcfactor]

Maybe I'm being snobby (and definitely off topic), but is anyone else disappointed that modern Adams prints are made on Ilford Multigrade (rather than a graded paper which would probably be closer to Adam's personal vision)?

[Kirk Gittings]

Maybe I'm being snobby (and definitely off topic), but is anyone else disappointed that modern Adams prints are made on Ilford Multigrade (rather than a graded paper which would probably be closer to Adam's personal vision)?

I assume you are referring to Alan Ross making his Ansel Adams Special Edition prints. No I am not disappointed. Alan is a master printer and knows exactly what he is doing. He has been printing these portfolios for what? Like 20 years?

[Robbie Shymanski]

Single-weight papers by Slavich are available in #2 & #3 grades from Freestyle. Also, if you are making a submission directly to HABS and not going through a state agency, you might consider contacting HABS and discussing making digital prints as they have been doing in-house for several years now. They have not created public standards for this yet, but they will accept if you speak with them.

[schafphoto]

I heard about NPS doing digital prints in-house, but I'm not sure it is a real time saver??? In order to get the entire negative scanned including the edges I would ned to scan on a glass carrier, crop and straighten the image in Photoshop, tweek the levels, and send to a printer. In order to get a borderless 4x5, I'd still need to trim all 4 sides, not a huge time saver. And I'm not sure I can convince my clients that the new, untested way is better, most have been submitting HABS the old way for decades...and have to go through the regional NPS office.

Besides I'm looking for ways to justify to my wife the need for my darkroom... and new equipment... ;-)

As far as a vacuum frame I have one, but while it will hold the paper flat I still need glass to hold the negs in contact. So why not have the glass do the flattening and avoid the noise of a vacuum???

[William McEwen]

I assume you are referring to Alan Ross making his Ansel Adams Special Edition prints. No I am not disappointed. Alan is a master printer and knows exactly what he is doing. He has been printing these portfolios for what? Like 20 years?

Ross has been printing them since 1975. That makes it 34 years.

I have three I purchased in the early 1980s. It might be interesting to purchase the latest prints of the same images and compare side by side.

(But I'm not going to.)

[schafphoto]

Single-weight papers by Slavich are available in #2 & #3 grades from Freestyle.

I just contacted 21 negatives from a HAER job in Santa Paula, and 18 were grade 0.5, grade 1 or grade 1.5. All negs N-1 development. None of these prints have the 'SNAP' and contrast I would print fine art, but they are often shot at 10:00AM, 11:00AM, Noon, 1:00PM, 2:00PM and 3:00PM. Not the ideal times I would go out and shoot fine-art photos, but there is usually a deadline and all the photos need to be done in one or two days. That unfortunately leaves the middle of the day as prime shooting hours, so if I want to get a little shadow detail I have to take it in the form of N-1 negatives printed on grade Zero to One MG papers. I am on Freestyle's Board of Advisors for infrared films, so I hope I can advise them to carry a MG single weight paper, (but it still won't be like AZO).

[jnantz]

since the habs department relieved themselves of state+locally significant sites &C
and left it to the states to record, the states have really been swayed
to accept digital only submissions. now many of the states
( at least here in the northeast) documentations digital files ( no film ) and ink jet prints.

from conversations with the folks in DC at the habs office, they had no intentions
of accepting digital submissions. there have been nightmarish problems
with some of the departments that have accepted digital submissions,
and a huge number of these images became corrupt and useless .....
it is hard to corrupt a sheet of film so it won't print, if it is filed in its
" unbuffered thumb tabbed envelope and print tipped onto a photo mount card "

i remember when national register nomination forms switched from fiber based paper to RC paper ...
mainly because the cost of a lab making fiber prints was through the roof compared to
RC prints ... but at least it was an across the board kind of thing - everyone in the country
submitted RC prints ... but it wasn't a patchwork like now,
where some states accept digital only submissions,
others accept 35mm and 4x6 enlargements,
and still others only accept 4x5 (or larger) and contact prints like a true habs submission ...

maybe in 2 years things have changed ?

[Kirk Gittings]

maybe inn 2 years things have changed ?

I only get interested in this topic when I do a HABS project, which seems to run sporadically these days. My last one was like two years ago. On-the-other-hand, Robbie (who commented above), a former student of mine, may have the most up-to-date info as his masters thesis (in progress) is HABS documentation and I know he has spent a fair amount of time in DC with the folks at HABS.

[jnantz]

thanks kirk ..

sorry for being a doubting thomas, robbie ...
john

[Robbie Shymanski]

From my conversations with HABS in DC:

-the basis for all HABS/HAER/HALS is and will be film. By that, BW negatives with color transparencies are the primary archival format. They have a proven passive archival stability and, of course, a 75-year history with archiving this format. Their belief is that until film to their standards become unavailable across the board, they are sticking with film as it keeps to the archival goals of HABS (500-year material lifespan).

-due to the end of the production of Kodak AZO single-weight paper HABS has internally begun to use pigment-based inkjet prints as the reference print that accompanies submission of the primary film artifact. These prints are on Epson Ultra Premium Matte Presentation Paper. The print is at 1:1 to the negative/transparency. HABS likes this because it saves space, which is the prime motive for using single-weight, but it also removes the need for a mounting card for the said contact print. The standard "Historic American Buildings Survey See Index to Photographs for Captions HABS No. XX-XXXX-001" can also be printed with the image. It is a much cleaner process. And they have no problem with PS manipulation of dodge/burn and tone/contrast as this print is only a secondary reference to the primary artifact of the exposed film.

-there is no filmless "digital" submission in the foreseeable future. For the sake of physical archiving, film is king.

All my information comes from conversations with Jack Boucher, Jet Lowe, and Catherine Lavoie within a year.

Another thing to add to this is that HABS proper tends to be much more flexible than some SHPOs regarding adherence to HABS Standards/Guidelines.