Sat in the drafts section of this sites admin screen is a post that I have been meaning to complete on photographic reading material. I was sat thinking about it today, yes, I was in the place that all good thoughts happen, and came upon a tangent for that piece.
Of all the photographic magazines out there today, there are very few that I still buy. Yes, they are very formulaic, you can compare this years editions with last years, and lo and behold similar articles and techniques are trotted out. However, one magazine I have stuck with over the years is Black and White photography magazine, although that may be changing, read on….
One thing I always liked about B&W Photography magazine was it’s enjoyment in “the process” and specifically, they had a “printer’s art” section, where a negative of a reader would be printed by a professional printer/photographer. To be honest, despite not having been in a darkroom in a long time, this was one of my favourite parts of the magazine. Why was it so? Well for a start you could see a thought process. The printer would draw over the image, showing how they would dodge/burn or vary the print (and paper) to get the image they were wanting from the neg. You saw a progression, but more importantly you saw what they were thinking…
Over the past year or two the magazine has changed, especially with a staunchly anti-digital editor leaving and it has changed for the worse. Why? Well it is always interesting to listen to the views of someone who opposes your methodolgy. The printer’s art now has a digital worker going through the process, sometimes in isolation, but mostly against someone in a darkroom. You know what? The digital version leaves me cold. This is not from some romantic yearning for the days of old, for a darkened room full of chemicals, mostly because I used to be a poor darkroom worker. I like to see what I am working on. Why does it leave me cold? Well that’s easy; it is a lack of thought and process.
Whilst it should be easier to document what you do in a digital workflow… (remember that Print Screen button)… what you often get is a series of settings and numbers, an easy to follow formula rather than a considered approach to the image in front of you.
A wet printer, on the other hand, has to go out of their way to show you what they did, so they create a visual history of their thought process. They will scrawl on a print showing areas that need work to bring out what they want. On an image there is notation of +2 here -3 here with a drawn outline of the area, illustrating how they were seeing an image and notes such as pre-flashed the paper on print 3. This to me is key. With digital, it has become far too easy to show “what we did” and the process of creating an image. In B&W Photography they just show the settings of the adjustment, rather than highlighting which bits need work on, a big mistake. It has been reduced from an art and a thought process into a series of variables that if you know them will lead you into the photographic Nirvana. Two examples of this are Andrzej Dragan, and Dave Hill. Both had a very distinct style and there were many threads across the photographic world (on the Internet) trying to discover their secret… “What settings should I use?” etc etc… As if finding this would unlock a secret. People were looking for that “quick fix” rather than a considered thought out approach. Instead of looking at the process as a whole, with digital there is a fixation on looking for the “right settings” what curves should I apply? Should I use layer blending? What sharpening?
In this printer’s art for the digital version, showing a curves/layers adjustment in PS makes people think, “this is what I should do” and “that’s the formula”. The person working on the image does not show how they “see” the image, we do not get an idea of how they interpret it, and that is a shame, as that is the interesting bit! People look at this as it is easier to quantify than looking at a rough print and going… “Hmmm I could bring out that area a bit”. This is what is missing in the whole process…thought.
We need to look at our images individually and see where they need and how they can be improved. Don’t think about a technique, a PS process, but think of a visual metaphor, look at how the image appears and how it needs to be refined. Not how to refine it. It’s a subtle difference, but an important one… one method relies on a “do it in PS approach” the other requires you to look, evaluate and adjust your shooting or overall approach and treatment of the image. Don’t use a formula either in shooting or in Post processing…look to develop a thought process and a narrative with your images.
Will I buy many more B&W Photography magazines? I don’t think I will, it will be the odd one from now on, ones that still contain articles about the love of photography, and they are getting fewer 
