March 14, 2014

• Old versus New? Which one are you?

  

  Black and white or color

   

  People frequently ask me if I miss the old darkroom days.  I do not miss the smell of chemicals, stained fingertips, spotty clothing and bottles of chemicals under every counter.

  When I got my first job as a photographer for a weekly paper, the deadline for prints was Monday morning.  So, every Sunday, I would develop my film (Black and white of course.), hang it up in the bathroom to dry by noon or so.  Then, in the evening, I would choose the images that I would submit to the editor.  It was then, that the real work began.  I had no official darkroom.  In a back hallway of my home, I would hang a dark out curtain, set up trays with developer, stop bath, fixer and then water.  Set up my enlarger and go to work.

  All of this work did not begin of course until I got my young toddlers off to bed.  (Usually around 9 p.m.)  With the radio usually tuned into a talk show, I began my night of printing a variety of assignments from the week.  With each photo assignment, the editor wanted up to five images to choose from.  If I was lucky, he would choose a few since my pay was based on the amount of images that went in the paper.  Frankly, I was making pennies.

  After being up for hours printing, I would wash the prints in the bath tub and place them on a screen to dry.  Every Monday morning, my husband woke up to screened trays of prints scattered around the house drying.  Me, I was up early to get the kids off to pre-school with maybe 2-3 hours sleep.  Everything had to be broke down and put away before morning so we could walk in the hallway.  Pretty nuts when you think about it now.

  What I do miss, however, is the beauty of a fine black and white print.  To me, black and white stops time.  One’s eye doesn’t wonder about color, it just looks at the intensity of the print.  I struggle all the time about turning my portraits into black and white because I wonder if the client will appreciate the look.  Kinda like wine, a black and white gets better with age!

  Now, with computers, the ability to change an image into black and white is fairly easy.  There are a ton of plug-ins that you can buy that you can manipulate an image.  One of my favorites is Alien Skin Software  (www.alienskin.com)   Being in love with vintage black and whites, there are plenty of selections to choose from which give you a variety of contrasts.  In particular, there is one called “Daguerreotype”.  If you are not familiar with this, a Daguerreotype photograph was first used around 1839 with light on a silver covered copper plate.  There was only one made per image.  If you are lucky to see one at a flea market that isn’t beat up, you should grab it.  It essentially looks like it is printed on glass.  The actually picture itself, looks a bit scratchy.

   

  With the Alien Skin Software, you can achieve this same look.  The only thrill of the darkroom was seeing the print come to life on the paper.  Pretty much gone now, it’s all done with computers unless you yourself want to set up your own dark room.  Tell me what you think!  Color vs. Black and white?

   

   

  • 1:46 pm
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