Let me start by giving credit to Bruce Barnbaum. Many years ago I read an article that he either wrote or one that described his printing methods. He was extolling the virtues of using color heads over cold light heads to make black and white prints with variable contrast paper. I decided to give it a try and have never looked back!

At first it sounds counter intuitive … making black and white prints with a color head, but it turns out to make great sense!

When I first started printing as a teenager I had an Omega B22. From there I graduated to a more solid Beseler 23C, and then on to an Omega D2V and several variants of the Beseler 45MX. Like most people in the Seventies I used the standard issue condenser heads that came with these machines. But then I came across Fred Picker and read the Ansel Adams trilogy (The Camera, The Negative, and The Print). The result … I converted to cold light, which among other things dispenses a softer and more diffuse light.

I’m not going to argue the merits of cold light vs. condenser light sources, except to say cold light is better (less visible dust spots, less harsh prints, greater luminosity, no negative buckling, and more)!

I bought an Aristo cold light and mounted it onto the Beseler. At the time I was still using graded paper. I wasn’t an early adopter of VC. It took some years before it could hold it’s own with the best graded papers. But I finally made that switch due to the dwindling availability of graded papers and the tremendous improvement of VC papers. Thankfully, VC was finally able to deliver the goods that only graded stock had been able to do. Phew!

I eventually moved onto the wonderful and well-built Zone VI Type 2 enlarger with a dedicated Zone VI VC head. I had the Zone VI for several years until I heard about Devere enlargers. Built in the UK, they are straightforward solid machines made to withstand a nuclear effect!

Now back to Bruce Barnbaum. It was around this time that I came across the aforementioned piece advocating color heads as an efficient, flexible and more precise alternative for cold light. Like cold light, color heads are a diffusion light source. A different method of diffusion for sure, but so close in results that it doesn’t matter for all intents in purpose. And let’s face it; if it’s good enough for a Master like Barnbaum, well it’s good enough for me!

Needless to say I found and purchased a Devere 504 with a Devere color head from a local color lab scaling down its darkroom business. Simply stated, I LOVE THIS ENLARGER (but more on that at another time)!!

For me the color head provides all of the benefits of cold light, but is far easier to use and enables greater precision! Best of all, they are plentiful and cheap! All enlarger manufacturers made them and they’re easily available on eBay, Craigslist, APUG, etc. And yes, I also use one on my Leitz Focomat V35 too. Sure, I own the dedicated black and white diffusion VC heads that came with both of my enlargers, but truth be told, why would I want to use them? In my experience the color heads just flat out offer so much more flexibility and ease of use.

So how do I use color heads with VC paper? There are different approaches, and your mileage may vary as they say on the forums, but after so many years of printing with graded paper my that’s the way my mind thinks, so that’s the way I come at it. It’s fast and yields great results. I simply take the paper manufacturer’s recommended color head settings for the “grades” I usually make test strips of and dial in the settings on the color head (Note: I don’t use strips but whole sheets of paper). Grade 2 and 3. I examine both papers under my viewing light to determine the proper basic exposure for each “grade”. Then I make a pilot print for each one. Using my viewing light again, I then dispense with one of the “graded” pilot prints (e.g., Grade 3). Now I go to work to fine-tune the one I have chosen (e.g., Grade 2) and create the finished fine print. Of course I can easily dial up or dial down the contrast for subtle change if I need to. In the past with graded papers I would use Selectol Soft with Dektol or Zone VI developer to lower contrast between grades, or more vigorously agitate the print in Dektol/Zone VI to slightly raise contrast. Finally, I can burn in using the chosen “grade” setting I’ve made, or I can simply dial in harder or softer settings depending on the effect I wish to achieve. So effective and so easy!

So if you are ready to get an enlarger (Note: I didn’t say buy because you might easily pick one up for free!) do consider one with a color head. And if you are currently printing with a black and white head of some kind think about picking up a color head and giving it a go. I think you will be pleasantly surprised!

I just finished teaching a course at Delaware Valley University’s Center for Learning in Retirement called “Planning and Creating a Photographic Project”. My thinking in putting it together was that we often snap pictures without much thought or make them without a larger purpose in mind. Or sometimes we get in a rut and can’t get motivated to make any pictures at all! Guess what … our horizons need expanding!

The objective of the class was for students to produce a theme-based photographic project with a specific objective in mind. I would help them along the way in terms of producing better photographs that they would be proud of and perhaps want to display.

Lofty goals for sure, but why not!

Back in February at the beginning of the semester I could tell most of the students were either ambivalent or nervous about what they had signed up for. First, they had to plan a project based on personal research concerning their chosen subject or area of interest. Then they had to create a thematic body of work and produce a portfolio containing 10 printed photographs. Finally they had to prepare a written essay describing the theme; why they chose it, what it meant to them, and what they learned during the course of making the photos and arranging their portfolio. Of course, each photograph had to be accompanied by a short written description of what it was and how it fit within the project theme. Piece of cake?

Ok, so it was a little daunting and not everyone that signed up stuck it out. But that’s all right. Better not to stay if you don’t want to put in the effort or you’re afraid of trying. Believe me I understand that it is far easier to keep doing things willy-nilly without much thought, or that is it is more fun to think about the next gear purchase rather than using what you have to make meaningful pictures.

I wanted the class to go beyond these stumbling blocks to plan a meaningful project and take the steps necessary to complete it. One thing I kept pounding them with is that there are stories and projects all around us! For gosh sakes if you can’t find something to do in a place like Buck’s County then there is a real problem! But it really doesn’t really matter where you live. The problem is that most of us feel we have to travel to some exotic location before we can get juiced up about making “important” photographs. Nonsense!

You have to open your eyes and become more aware of your surroundings and the range of possibilities they offer. That means new thinking concerning what’s really important in your life … and for that matter … life in general. And when you do have a project or theme you are working on, please don’t have a blind spot when it comes to unexpected opportunities. Bottom line … there’s so much to see and capture if only we are open to it!

I wanted the students to write about what they hoped to … and did accomplish … and what the work meant to them. This would help crystalize things and writing about each picture would further help to tie the portfolio together.

After seeing what the students accomplished, I was more than satisfied with my strategy and I am now especially convinced that writing can be a great tool in your photographic arsenal!

But what really excited the students and me was the result of their hard work! They really grew and created some very nice work! In some cases they surprised themselves … and me! Those that were most successful truly did open their eyes to see things in new ways … such as abstract designs found in man made objects or nature … or the true importance and deep meaning of family relationships. In short, they learned that there really are extraordinary stories and projects to do all around us worth discovering and photographing!!

Seeing the results of their hard work was my reward. That and a renewed purpose to keep my own eyes open to all the wonderful possibilities that lie before me.

I was thinking about what I wanted to write this week. I had just finished power washing the paint off our outdoor deck. Yeah, it took five hours. Now I get to let it dry for two weeks before sanding it down and eventually repainting it. I did it on the day it wasn’t supposed to rain … but of course it did. Well the deck didn’t care, as it was being saturated anyway, but I sure wasn’t too happy @#$%^&*(. Now it was time for me to write. My cutesy wife suggested I write about my power washing experience, but I didn’t think it would generate much interest … but I am writing about it after all … aren’t I?

OK, enough of that! So I continue to think about the last two entries I wrote concerning proof sheets. I guess there’s still some gas left in the tank, so I’ve decided I would like to discuss cropping, a subject I touched upon last time and one that continues to come up in my classes.

I know that many, including the late great Henri Cartier Bresson believe in an almost religious way that what was captured on the negative is a sacred, and if you didn’t capture the subject as it should be … well then too bad … you lose!

Here’s an excerpt from a 1958 interview with HCB:

“Interviewer: You’ve been known for never cropping your photos. Do you want to say anything about that?

HCB: About cropping? Uh, I said in that forward, we have to have a feeling for the geometry of the relation of shapes, like in any plastic medium. And I think that you place yourself in time, we’re dealing with time, and with space. Just like you pick a right moment in an expression, you pick your right spot, also. I will get closer, or further, there’s an emphasis on the subject, and if the relations, the interplay of lines is correct, well, it is there. If it’s not correct it’s not by cropping in the darkroom and making all sorts of tricks that you improve it. If a picture is mediocre, well it remains mediocre. The thing is done, once for all.”

Cropping … let me say it now… I believe it is ok and I do it.

There, I said it!

That’s right … I don’t believe it should be an article of religious faith that what is contained in the negative is sacrosanct and can only be printed full frame.   I guess that means I’m at odds with the great Master and others on this one, but I can live with that … and I think you can too without lying awake at night. Yes, there are things that keep me up at night, but this isn’t one of them!

It is absolutely essential to do your best to see and compose the image as carefully as possible when you make the picture. But let’s face it; sometimes things can be improved with cropping. Yes, I suppose it’s better if you don’t have to, if only because there is less to think about in the darkroom. But if you need to do the deed in order to create something of substance should anyone really care? I don’t.

I mean if this really bothers you, perhaps you should take a deep breath and relax.

Now, I am no HCB and most of us will never be, but we are working to create meaningful images … if not for others, at least for ourselves. Of course we shouldn’t have license to be sloppy with our vision and technique. Nevertheless, if we come up a little short during the moment of truth, but have captured something that still can be special with a little corrective surgery (based thoughtful analysis of the image on the proof sheet), then why go for it?

In short I don’t believe anyone has the perfect power of pre-visualization, not HCB or Adams or Frank or Evans or Steiglitz or Kertesz or Brandt… no one. That is why they … and we … have so few keepers relative to the total amount of exposures made. It’s also why so many of the Masters crop if necessary!

Here’s an excerpt from an essay published by Bill Brandt in 1948; it is still spot on:

“When young photographers come to show me their work, they often tell me proudly that they follow all the fashionable rules. They never use electric lamps or flashlight; they never crop a picture in the darkroom, but print from an untrimmed negative; they snap their model while walking about the room.

I am not interested in rules and conventions … photography is not a sport. If I think a picture will look better brilliantly lit, I use lights, or even flash. It is the result that counts, no matter how it was achieved. I find the darkroom work most important, as I can finish the composition of a picture only under the enlarger. I do not understand why this is supposed to interfere with the truth. Photographers should follow their own judgment, and not the fads and dictates of others.”  

So when it comes time to print, why include a distracting element, or forgo the opportunity to intensify a critical compositional feature? In my opinion the only thing that matters is the final result. If cropping can strengthen an image, then by all means crop!

It’s not a sin, but pray for me if you must.