darkroom
I had an incredible experience at Hidden Light, where I had the chance to print some of my digital photos in the darkroom, using Platinum Palladium. And no one better to teach me than Matt Beaty, who's built an incredible lab where the prints some of the biggest Pt/Pd prints in the world.
Richard Avedon’s markup
Post-processing is one of the most controversial topics in photography these days, with some even dismissing edited photos as "digital art." This argument often comes from the idea that back in the film days, photography was more honest, and editing is a new thing.
History tells us a different story, though. Some big names in photography, like Ansel Adams and Bill Brandt, knew that what happened after the shot was just as important as taking it. Clicking the shutter was just another step in the very long process of crafting a masterpiece, which often required many hours in the darkroom perfecting the final print.
Other masters would use professional printers to bring their vision to fruition. Take Richard Avedon, for example. He handed his negatives to a master printer. This person would take Avedon's incredibly detailed notes and feedback and turn them into the final print. Now, that is even better than AI!
Perhaps, part of the criticism comes from the fact that the darkroom was once reserved for the most dedicated or the ones with the most resources. Today, anyone with a smartphone can tweak their photos -and it’s easy to overdo it.
Whether you prefer the simplicity of straight-out-of-camera shots or enjoy fine-tuning your images afterward, it is you who decides what to do and how to do it. Never let anyone change that.
How far can we go with photography? When does it stop being photography and start becoming something else, like digital art?
I discussed this topic in my newsletter a couple of weeks ago, and I thought it'd be interesting to make a video about it.
In this video, I edit 6 images I made this winter on my iPad using Adobe Lightroom CC.
Why I believe that contact sheets can be useful to a digital photographer, and how to create a contact sheet with Adobe Photoshop.
A few months ago, I decided to start calling myself an artist, instead of a photographer. After all, I create art. Or I try to.
Artists aren't trying to represent what I see in an accurate and truthfully way. We try to express ourselves.
Instead of capturing nature with proper exposure and focus so it resembles as much as possible the original, we try to use it to express an idea or emotion, to add our own character.
This approach to photography is less about what's in front of the lens, and more about who's behind it.
In order to make an image able to convey our message from a realistic representation, often times we have no choice but to edit, in software or the darkroom, our negatives, RAW files, whatever it is, so creation can happen.
Many dismiss this as unethical or unnecessary. I say, this is how art is done.
Finally got to shoot in the snow this winter! I take you with me on a short trip to the mountains, and then we take one of the images I made there, we edit it and we talk about what we can and can't do with our photos in post.
I was sick for all of last week. This gave me a lot of time to think, and I came up with a little project: building a darkroom as basic as possible so I could bring it with me everywhere.
This is still an on-going project, and in this video I share my thought process and the first results. I expect to have a much more refined and polished process by next week, along with the first final, serious prints.
"Photography is not a sport, there are no rules, everything must be tried and tested" - Bill Brandt
Bill Brandt is one my greatest inspirations. I love his landscapes, portraits and even the nudes (not a big fan of the genre, but the way he did it was just genius).
I think what I like the most about him is his approach to photography. For him, it was all about creating something with the medium, avoiding silly self-imposed rules.
He died in 1983, 5 years before Photoshop was created. That didn't stop him from completely changing his images in the darkroom. Actually, he admittedly did most of his work in the darkroom.
The image of the seagull is a good example. He added the bird afterwards, and the morning Sun years later.
He was brilliant, and we'd be wise to follow his advice to experiment and try everything.
PS: If you want to know more about Bill Brandt, I strongly recommend watching this interview from 1983 for BBC's Master Photographers.
You might know that I've recently set up a new darkroom after leaving all my equipment in the US. As part of this new setup, I got some **Rodinal** to try as my new developer. And I made a mistake.
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If you have an Epson scanner, you already know which annoying bug I’m talking about. Today, I think I’ve fixed it! This is how.
Read MoreOne backpack and one suitcase: that's all I had when I moved from the US to Europe. All my stuff had to fit in two bags, and after a careful selection of what I really needed, everything else had to stay behind.
Among the stuff that didn't make it with me was all my darkroom equipment. But after 3 months of shooting almost exclusively digital, I was missing my Bronica so much that last week I finally pulled the trigger and bought everything I need to develop film at home... again.
This is a list of all the stuff I bought. You can use it as a checklist if you are building your own darkroom, although you might find you need more -or fewer- items than these.
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