What's your opinion on high contrast B&W?

[Rayt]

Alberto Korda's photograph of Che Guevara is reported to be the most reproduced photograph in history, somebody likes high contrast black and white.

That’s a good example of when a photojournalist has to shoot under harsh lighting. It’s inevitable the negative will have that look intended or not. And the iconic Che image was heavily cropped so if something doesn’t have enough resolution after a crop for a large print then one way is to up the contrast so it doesn’t look like a news print.

I really like Trent Parke’s Minutes to Midnight because photography is about the light and he knew how to use contrast in a way St Ansel knew about tones.

 

[koraks]

As I recall the Che photo wasn't particularly hard in contrast. That's what it became in subsequent publications.

 

[IpseLux]

In my youth, I despised middle grays. It seemed that a big, middle gray smudge was all you got from the Kmart photo from your B&W roll. A big, fuzzy, gray mess.
And in school, we worked with Polycontrast paper, but I never once used the contrast filters to print my enlargements. Not once.
I was more concerned with not blowing the highlights to paper white than to anything else.
Not until much later, did I understand than yes, midtones are great. Highlights must be protected. But what makes or breaks a B&W image are the blacks: rich, deep, dark. And they must be substantial and anchor everything else. I think artists speak of positive and negative space sometimes. I think of it as blacks and whites balancing each other.
As to your post, a friend in school did a lot of contrasty stuff for music and bands, especially staged shows. It helps that pushing a roll of film kinda does this anyhow. Seems like music is perfect for that. Punk rock. Ha. Ha.
I prefer creamy, almost sugar powdery grain, beautiful full 10-11 Zones of gradient variance, but deep solid blacks. Slow film. Fine grain. Gentle processing.
And not just in B&W, lately I’ve been experimenting a lot pulling film. I tend to shoot lazy, ie at less than optimal times of the day, when the sun is high and shadows are at their worse….
Exposing for the shadows and pulling processing a bit does wonders.
Thanks for posting this.

 

[IpseLux]

That’s a good example of when a photojournalist has to shoot under harsh lighting. It’s inevitable the negative will have that look intended or not. And the iconic Che image was heavily cropped so if something doesn’t have enough resolution after a crop for a large print then one way is to up the contrast so it doesn’t look like a news print.

I really like Trent Parke’s Minutes to Midnight because photography is about the light and he knew how to use contrast in a way St Ansel knew about tones.

I think the photojournalist aesthetic was also influenced by the graphic nature of newspaper prints. I’m not sure what that is called, the tiny black dots which made most newspaper images…. It automatically reduced latitude by a bunch.
But yes, you make excellent points R.