Photography can be breathtaking and beautiful. It can represent a real or an imagined world. Yet, from its beginnings, photography constantly struggled to be accepted as ‘real’ art. There were those who claim artistic creativity is too constrained by the involvement of a highly technical process, which is a debate that is now refueled with the invention of digital imaging. Nevertheless, it requires the combination of creativity and craft to create fine art. A visionary, no matter how creative, without mastery of the photographic craft, will struggle to create a print that reflects the intended feeling or mood. On the other hand, the craftsman without creativity might be able to create beautiful prints, but they will have little artistic individuality. There is no essential difference between the artist and the craftsman. The artist is an exalted craftsman.
A common interest in good photography, combined with a fascination for fine-art printing and an appreciation for the craftsmanship involved, drew us together many years ago. We recognized that the final print is the only criterion by which all previous photographic steps can be judged and that poor technique can ruin the best print. Fortunately, good technique can be learned, but it proved difficult to find contemporary literature that competently addressed all of the topics and intricacies of creating fine-art prints successfully.
We felt that many of the recently published instructional books did not cover the technical aspects of printmaking in sufficient detail and failed to help discerning printers to progress. Therefore, we found ourselves frequently consulting good technical literature, published several decades ago and no longer available for sale. In addition, these books were rarely supported by commendable pictorial content and seldom made for an easy read. There were, however, many quality photographic publications with admirable image content. Nevertheless, these often fell short in offering creative advice or completely avoided revealing the techniques required to achieve the presented results. It seemed to us that the entire photographic community was separated into artists, darkroom practitioners and photographic scientists with limited interest in each other’s work. Obviously, there was little chance for them ever to get together and write one book, covering in adequate detail all subjects required to produce skilled fine-art prints consistently and to support the technical advice with a respectable pictorial body of work. Since obviously no one else was working on this task, we picked up the challenge and set to work.
We took more than ten years to research, draft, write, edit, re-write and lay out the first and second edition, although our individual data collections started many years before we began. During this period, digital imaging made its presence known with a meteoric rise in sales and hype, and we felt obligated to research and include some digital monochrome techniques. All visual artists select a medium to communicate their message: for some, this is oil paint on canvas; for others, it is charcoal or watercolor on paper. We chose analog B&W photography. Frequently, when progress and innovation offer a new tool, it must be considered an additional choice and not a replacement, regardless of exaggerated predictions from overly eager proponents. Not all painters abandoned their paintbrushes when photography was announced in 1839, and similarly, fine-art prints will continue to be made with traditional materials in spite of the arrival of digital printing. Nevertheless, a new tool often provides additional possibilities that only Luddites ignore, and it offers the potential to improve on an otherwise mature technology, making it cheaper, quicker, simpler or better.
Unfortunately, many digital-imaging claims of cost and timesavings, simplicity and longevity have since proven to be premature. We have invested considerable research time, effort and money into every aspect of digital imaging, and it is our joint conclusion that there are obvious advantages to digital manipulation, but digital print quality is inferior to silver-gelatin prints in many ways. In reality, there is nothing cheap, quick or simple about digital imaging. It requires a considerable ongoing financial investment in hardware and software, a significant effort to become a proficient user and a tiring amount of work to get an image manipulated to satisfaction. Moreover, it has the common disadvantage of evolving technologies in which all investments are outdated before they have a realistic chance to appreciate.
Considering all of this, we are restricting the digital contents in the second edition to include digital capture, digital sensitometry and the making of digital negatives for the purpose of traditional printing to silver-gelatin papers. We purposely avoid detailed instructions about digital manipulation, because many competent publications already cover this exciting subject, and often-useful technique, in more detail than we ever could. For now, we will stay away from inkjet printing as a final output altogether and leave this topic to more frequently updated publications, since they can react more quickly to constant technology improvements in this area. At the same time, we have reorganized, updated and added to the first edition in all areas, to make this book as accurate and complete as possible. The result, we believe, upholds the best in current monochrome practice.
During the research phase for this book, we processed countless rolls of film and sheets of paper to evaluate the influence and significance of all known photographic variables. Being familiar with professional testing methods and statistical process control, we are aware that our test methods will not withstand scientific scrutiny. Be that as it may, we have taken all reasonable care that potential variables, not tested for, have been kept constant within a tolerance, where they could not influence the results as anything more than insignificant noise factors. Strictly speaking, many results presented in the book may only be valid for the particular materials tested and may not be applicable to others. Enough test details are given for you to recreate the tests with your favorite materials, nevertheless.
A book project, like this, cannot be accomplished without the help and support of some knowledgeable and experienced people. They all deserve our appreciation and gratitude. First and foremost, we thank Karen Lambrecht for patiently editing the text and asking countless clarifying questions. Without her effort, linguistic expertise and patience, this book would have never happened.
Many thanks for their support also goes to our friends in photography, Frank Andreae, Thomas Bertilsson, Nicole Boenig-McGrade, Don Clayden, Andreas Emmel, Brooks Jensen, Paul Kessel, Marco Morini, Michael R. Peres, Lynn Radeka, Henrik Reimann, Gerry Sexton, John Sexton, Steve Sherman, Peter De Smidt, Bernard Turnbull, Keith A. Williams and Hisun Wong, who contributed their excellent photographs to illustrate this book.
Special thanks to Howard Bond and Phil Davis for their initial guidance, introduction to the Zone System and early technical edits. Many thanks to Dr. Richard Zakia for the permission to use his valuable illustrations. Many thanks, as well, to Dr. Michael J. Gudzinowicz and Dr. Scott Williams (Rochester Institute of Technology), and to Douglas Nishimura (Image Permanence Institute) for sharing their knowledge on archival processing techniques. Finally, special thanks also to Ian Grant, Mike Gristwood (Ilford Imaging UK Ltd, retired) and Dave Valvo (Eastman Kodak Company, retired) for their continuing technical support and final technical edits. The combined help of all the people above, and the feedback, suggestions and encouragement we received from our readers of the first edition, made this book more authoritative, useful and accurate.