Dedicated Exposure and Development for Contact Printing

[NickLimegrove]

A question out of curiosity, not so much out of a practical need:

Like (I assume) most people, I have practical experience with contact prints only as an intermediate step on the way to a final -- enlarged -- print.

But If I remember correctly, the vast majority of photos I've seen in pre-WW2 family photo albums (such as those of my great-grandparents) seem to be contact prints from, usually, 6x6 or 6x9cm negatives. And of course, there are the athletes in the more heavyweight disciplines (8x10" etc.), for some of whom the final printing step is synonymous with contact printing as well.

What this makes me wonder is this: if we consider the fact that, when exposing and developing with an enlarged print in mind, even the difference between different types of enlarger (condenser/diffusor) has considerable relevance for the way we expose and develop our negatives -- wouldn't then the question of "contact printing" vs. "enlarged printing" be at least as important? And, if so, what different treatment did/does a negative typically require when it is exposed/developed with contact printing in mind? What could I expect my great-grandparents negatives to look like, in terms of gradation, and how much differently would they print on a more-or-less contemporary enlarger? Or, vice versa, how differently do people shooting large format today process their film when they're working with contact prints in mind? (Let's focus on silver gelatin only.)

I consulted a few books from the past 80 years I have at hand (Windisch, Beutler, Henry, Anchell, Troop), but none of them seem to be concerned with that question much. So I thought maybe some of you have a few insights to share.

 

[koraks]

what different treatment did/does a negative typically require when it is exposed/developed with contact printing in mind?

Practically speaking, it poses more strict requirements on matching the qualities of the negative to the target printing process. Anyone dabbling in alternative printing processes like salted paper, cyanotype etc. is used to doing this, although many of course inkjet print their negatives these days.

What could I expect my great-grandparents negatives to look like, in terms of gradation

Fairly robust especially if they're from the first half of the 20th century. But it depends a bit on what kind of paper was used to contact print them. As the 20th century progressed more choices became available in terms of paper gradations, also for contact printing purposes. The bandwidth was narrower than what we're used to with VC papers, but for Azo-type papers, there were different grades available. So that very punchy negative might have been printed on a softer paper and vice versa. Keep also in mind that proficient printers would apply additional 'trickery' to adjust the print to the negative, such as controlling the extent of paper/print development, using water-bath development etc. Furthermore some would have employed 'post processing' techniques like toning or even (selective) bleaching to get the desired outcome. The more advanced techniques are of course unlikely to be heavily featured in a family album, so it's common to see lots of sub-par (technically speaking) prints in them.

There's lots more to be said about it, but all considered, making negatives for contact printing is/was not too different to making negatives for enlarging onto fix-grade paper, although the latter of course allows more to be done w.r.t. burning & dodging, which does make a big difference.

I consulted a few books from the past 80 years I have at hand (Windisch, Beutler, Henry, Anchell, Troop)

I think you're better off looking at writings of people like Michael and Paula Smith and all the guys & gals working in the alt. process domain, like Sandy King et al. (although they have mostly moved to hybrid methods long ago).