Photography Tutorial, Black and White Photographic Printing, f8 Pro Photo

   O.K. You’ve just taken a great shot, developed it with loving care, you don’t give a damn about characteristic curves, so let’s get it straight into the enlarger and make it come to life.
   The art of printing is burning and dodging. Trying to get every tonal grade off the negative and onto B&W photographic paper having a brightness range of only 32:1 is a skilful task.
   Though it requires only very simple tools, the use of them can make the difference between a great print or a mediocre one. Something like this should appear on the enlarger easel.

Analysing this reversed image on the easel takes a little practice. You will know, from taking the picture, the kind of image you want (pre-visualisation). This shot for example, chosen for it’s full range of tones, has a group of boys in a Church, wearing black and white robes, so detail is required here whereas the vaulted ceiling looks as if may disappear into a void of darkness so critical exposure time for this area.

   Well, the exposure and dodging that is, burning comes last as does vignetting the corners.
    I always start the exposure, not by switching on the light, but having the light on yet blocked by card below the lens. Snatch the card away to commence. The reason for this is when the negative receives light it receives heat also causing momentary expansion i.e. movement.
    On stopping down the enlarger lens. This lens works in reverse to a Camera lens in that Depth of Field occurs at the negative and Depth of Focus occurs on the print however, just like a Camera lens, there is an optimum f stop at which the most detailed image is projected. You can find this f stop by trial and error (usually about f8 or f11). Whence found use it all the time.
    On focusing, if using a magnified focussing device that’s calibrated correctly, place this on a peice of photographic paper to focus. The thickness of paper makes a difference.
   Learn the knack of handling large sheets of paper without ‘cockling’ the surface and sliding the paper into the dev. tray quickly to ensure even development, give it the two minutes or whatever your preferred technique, drain momentarily, a quick 30 second douse in Stop Bath to arrest development then Fix it for only the minimum amount of time needed for archival permanence, over fixing is bad for the image structure, wash it -20 mins. running water.
   And Voila!



                    Now you can mount it, frame it, exhibit it but hopefully sell it and make some money.

                                            text, graphics & photographs C steve rostron 2007

In the far background are the Church Organ pipes, an important feature of the image, which we can emphasize by dodging to lighten them up conversely, some heavy burning in is needed to get more detail into the hanging lamp.
Placing a test strip of photographic paper thus will give us an idea of the exposure for the Boys, the ceiling void and the pipes. Two or three of these may be needed to arrive at an overall exposure time that I'm going to say is 7 seconds.
There are no set rules for choice of paper grade as it’s a subjective decision - depends on the image you want. As a rule of thumb, if you’ve exercised sufficient loving care during development, the image contrast should transpose itself onto Grade 2 quite well. If you’re struggling with Grade 0 or 5 then, unless you want special effects, you’ve seriously cocked up somewhere along the process!
From the test strips you should now have a general plan for making a test print resembling something like this.

Now, tools of the trade. You’ll need some low-tech implements like Paper Clips, Scissors, sharp blade or Scalpel and some A4 size sheets of black paper or thin card, rigid enough to remain horizontal held with one hand, you’re hands, by the way, need to be as dextrous as an Origamist.
For practise clasp your hands and make a shadow on the easel. Now make a hole letting light through forming a circle of image while blocking the rest of it. This is for burning in. You can cut holes in paper also but one often needs specific sized holes that hands can form quickly.
Straighten out a paper clip and fasten to the end of it a pre-cut shape of paper. This is your dodger. The trick with a hole or a dodger is to keep it moving so as not to cause an edge effect on the image or a shadow from the paper clip. Varying the distance from the easel will give you a hard or soft edge to the effect.