Bill Pierce
Nuts & Bolts

Darkroom Techniques
for Electronic Shooters

It seems many electronic newsgatherers have been sneaking into the darkroom.

Whether it is (1) the inconvenience of showing electronic images, (2) the inability to get those images from an employer plus the fear they may be destroyed, (3) a feeling that current digital cameras aren't up to the task of producing top-quality large prints for display or (4) that conventional digital prints may not have the long-lasting qualities of a properly processed black-and-white image, a lot of photographers are double shooting - the electronic or digital camera for their employer and the conventional black-and-white still camera for themselves.

Of course, the history of double shooting has a long, if criminal, history. It is rumored that Walker Evans shot one side of an 8x10 holder for the FSA and one side for himself. And do editors really think a photographer has given them all of the color slides?

There are a number of moral and ethical problems here. But there is also the non-ethical problem that, if you do not spend a fair amount of time in the darkroom printing, you lose the ability to make a good print.

How does the criminal element among us come up with a good print without spending a lot of time in the darkroom? The same way we covered ourselves when many of us shot our first rolls of color transparency film - BRACKET.

Most of the bad prints I see from photographers who can only spend a little time in the darkroom are too dark and too flat. It's understandable. The print looks good in the wash tray, but it dries down.

I suggest double filter printing on variable contrast paper - one exposure through the strongest magenta filter and another exposure through the strongest yellow filter. It seems silly to go to this complex process for a print, but it cures the dry-down problem even when you're using several papers that dry-down to different degrees.

A test strip through the strong magenta filter will tell you the number of seconds you need to expose to get a black from the very thinnest portions of the negative. Use another test strip to combine this exposure and several exposures through the yellow filter. While the magenta filter has its greatest effect on the blacks, the yellow controls the value of the highlights. You are going to find magenta and yellow exposure times that produce a good print. Having done that, make the print.

Now, if you make another print with just a little less exposure through the yellow filter, you will make a print that is both lighter and contrastier. Unlike a print that is just contrastier or just ligher, this is exactly what we need to compensate for dry down. Make several prints decreasing the yellow exposure a little more each time. One of those contrastier, lighter prints is going to dry down to the perfect image. You can give the others to that elderley maiden aunt who is always bugging you for prints.

At the present time, print the images on fibre paper properley washed and, perhaps, selenium toned. This will guarantee that the evidence that you are a photo-thief will last a long, long time.