Doing the Real Thing ...
I did some lith prints of some images you already know as kallitypes, so it is some old friends showing up again. You can see them here in this post. But this post is not about these images, it is more about something I thought about when spending the usual 8 minutes development time per print.
Every once in a while, when talking to other photographers or when sharing prints, somebody tries to challenge me with comments like - why do you still use film when digital is so much easier and cheaper and better? Or - Can't you achieve this lith look not also by using Photoshop? Or - why do you still use a darkroom and prefer the smell of the chemicals when you could instead sit in front of the computer in day light?
To answer the usual better, cheaper and easier question is an easy one:
- Better? I like what I can get out of the darkroom and I do not care about something else being better or somebody else thinking something else being better.
- Cheaper? I already save a lot of money by not buying a new DSLR every two or three years. And prints (inkjet or lightjet) done on a paper cost more than what a print in the darkroom costs. And yes sometimes digital images look cheap. No! That was not me writing that last sentence. Just ignore it.
- Easier? Well, probably, but what I learned from life is: to get some satisfaction, let the others do the easy things.
Well, but that is not it. The real argument - my real argument - is a different one. And it is a very simple one:
I could sit in front of a computer to handle my imagery, but I already sit in front of a computer monitor the whole day to earn my living. Why should I sit in front of a computer monitor in my free time? That usually stops any more arguing. Even if it is not true, because partly I spent free time in front of a computer to scan my prints and show them here or to keep contact to people I know via the internet and only the internet.
But there is more to it than just that. And not that simple.
It is also a question about what you want to do and how real that should be. To me a digital image on the hard disk or shown on the computer monitor is not real. I have to have a print in hand. And even then ...
Let's come back to the digital lith print question which I often hear after describing the process: Can't you do these lith prints not much easier in Photoshop? I can not and nobody can. You can not do a lith print in Photoshop - or to be a bit more specific about what I mean, you can not do a real lith print in Photoshop. What you can do in Photoshop is something which looks like a real lith print, but that is all it is - something which looks like a real lith print.
In the eyes of the viewer one may look exactly like the other. Not a big deal for the consumer (you, if you are not in the lith print business), but a big difference for the producer (me). So the question why I do not use Photoshop to produce images which look like lith prints simplifies to the following: Do I want to produce the real thing or something which just looks like the real thing? I decided for the real thing. And as I already mentioned in an earlier post, this decision has nothing to do with the one method being better than the other (I do not know which is) or the one is easier than the other (I do not care which is) or the one produces prettier results (wasn't the assumption that they may look the same).
This decision is only based on me wanting to do the real thing and not the virtual. Would I be in winery, I would like to produce wine the traditional way and not using a laboratory. There are many other examples out there.
So now we know that I prefer to do real lith prints and I want to make sure that in no way I want to influence you. If you are able to produce digital b&w photographs which look like real lith prints - good so, congratulations, because even if I would like, my Photoshop skills do not allow me to do so. Who knows, maybe my preference for one method is influenced by my incapability in the other method.
And the essence of all this babbling: If we ever meet in person, please do not ask why I do not use Photoshop to produce lith prints.
Oh, did I mention that all this also applies to kallitypes and other processes as well?
PS: And then there is a totally different reason why I prefer darkroom prints over inkjet or lightjet prints, but that is a story for one of the next posts.
Week 18: Bad Urach ...
This weekend I was at a gathering of some members of a German Nikon internet forum (Nikon Fotografie Forum) in Bad Urach. I had my little Zero2000 with me and a small Jobi Gorillapod. Although it is not easy to do some pinhole photographs when out with a bigger group (usually these meetings are more to meet the people and not to do serious photography) I tried some pinholes. The image you see here is probably kind of interesting as I fixed the gorillapod at the door handle. So whenever somebody entered the room the camera moved with the door, keeping the door in "sharpness" and leading to some double or better multi exposures for the rest of the image. I find this kind of funny. Maybe you too.
I also tried some new paper (well, new is probably the wrong word for the paper since it is a very old one). I had the problem to show some of my images to that group of people without too much delay. But I do not want to scan film and I was also not in the mood to do normal prints on RC paper (which get dry pretty fast). Well, rarely I am in the mood of doing normal prints. So fiber based paper was not a choice for the task but then I remembered that when I bought my 5×7 enlarger that guy gave me some Classic Arts paper called polywarmtone RC. Polywarmtone, that sounds like the Forte emulsion and I knew - it will lith print. So I gave it a try and it worked. What a pitty that this paper is not produced anymore. But probably Adox will give it a rebirth: Forte Polywarmtone Rebirth.
Week 19: Amadus Church, Bad Urach ...
This is another image from the outing in Bad Urach. It shows a detail of Amadus Church in Bad Urach. One stop more light would have been great, but being out with a group of people you have to be careful to not let your exposures be too long, so do not expect the same patience as yours from others running in 1/250 second cycles.
This weeks side print shows a hall in Bad Urach palace. Also a lith print.
Week 20: Gräfenstein Castle again ...
This week I show you another image of Gräfenstein Castle, a bench and a window of the main building (if you can still call it building). It is a lith print done on Adox Fineprint Classic FB. This image is not scanned. Since it is on 12×16" paper I had to photograph it with my digital gadget. The price I have to pay for the bigger print. I will try it on some smaller paper and see how prominent the lith grain gets on the smaller sized image.
Week 21: Landesbank Baden-Württemberg ...
It has been some time that I was in the darkroom. It is busy times and I spent my evenings sitting at the computer, doing conference calls with others and getting things to work. No time for the darkroom.
But yesterday I took the chance and came out of the darkroom with three lith prints that I liked. I will show you two of them today and one which is a little bit special next week. Honestly, the print I am going to show next week will in my opinion be the best print I showed on this blog so far. I like it very much and I hope you also will like it. Stay tuned.
So the two images for today - two weeks ago I visited an exhibition of Barbara Klemm in Karlsruhe together with some colleges from the local camera club. The show was great, I like many of her images.
After the show we went to the building of Landesbank Baden-Württemberg. I took some pinhole images there. What you see above is the entrace of the parking garage. It is an Ω-lith print done on Fomatone MG FB. The side print shows the entrance of Landesbank Baden-Württemberg. There is some story to tell about this print. When I finished it and closed the shutter I saw a security car arriving and parking in front of the door. The gesturing security guy seemed as if he wanted to talk to me. So I thought, OK, now I have to explain to the guy that photographing from public ground is allowed etc. So I went to him and asked if he minds me taking photographs here. But he responded, oh, that is perfectly OK with him, photographing from public ground is allowed, he just wanted to know if he is in my way and if he should park somewhere else.
OK, back to the prints. It is pretty difficult to get the real feel of these prints through the scanning process. They show a kind of greenish color in the shadows and go over into a reddish lilac in the midtones just to arrive at an orange yellow in the highlights. I like that colorish images after days and days and evenings and evenings of gray work time.
I will be back next week.
Week 22: Parking Garage - All the Way Up
So here is this weeks image. This is an image that I am really lucky with. In my opinion it is my best pinhole of the year so far. You may be of a different opinion and that is OK. The image is - as last weeks images - an Ω-lith print on Fomatone MG FB. It shows a view of the inside of the parking garage. I stood inside the circular ramp and had the camera pointing to the ceiling. Due to the loss of detail because of the pinhole this image got really abstract and the lith does help with this, as it shows really nice grainy shadows and a lot of glow in the highlights.
Week 23: Forggensee
Last week I was in Schwangau, near Füssen with my family. We had a lot of rain and decided to not stay for the whole week. But at least there were also some hours without rain, or at least without heavy rain. So my camera got only slightly wet during the 20 seconds exposure of Forggensee. This is a normal print on Ilford Warmtone FB with a light sulfur toning. So, no lith or kallitype or other stuff for this weeks image.