Didn't Ansel Adams called it the "Fuzzy wuzzies"?

removed account4 · Nov 27, 2018

Helinophoto said:
I have a Mortensen book from the 30's, since I wanted to get into that sort of darkroom wizardry.

"Print finishing"

And another one "Picture making with paper negatives" Nowell Ward

Though it seems that a lot of the negative manipulation is best suited for large format (biggest I shoot is 6*9)

The paper negative techniques seem to require very thin paper, doesn't seem that this kind of paper is produced all that much anymore :/

just to add to what ralph said ...
one of the resons they used single weight wasn't necessarily for short exposure times
( double weight normal weightpaper takes a little bit longer time to expose ) but because
sometimes the texture of the paper can be printed on the positive print...
a fun exercise is to make a 35mm enlargement onto fiber paper and then take that postiive print and put it face to face
( emulsion to emulsion ) with another fresh piece of paper to make a negative ... if you need to retouch it you can put it emulsion side down
above something bright / milk glass / retouching desk and with pencil lead do your retouching wizardry on the backside of the print
then emulsion to emulsion again and make your positive print ... ive done this with prints when i couldn't find the negative ...
you can also put the print on a warm skillet/tray &c and melt wax and rub the image down with wax to make it translucent ... or semi-translucent..
not sure how much exposure time it emiminates but its fun ...

wyofilm · Nov 27, 2018

Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear
Fuzzy Wuzzy had no hair
Fuzzy Wuzzy wasn't fuzzy, was he?

wyofilm · Nov 27, 2018

Sirius Glass said:
AA's and my problem with the Fuzzy Wuzzies is that they were painter wannabees. If they wanted their work to look like paintings, they should have been painting.

If more photographers paid attention to painters the world might be blessed with more compelling compositions. I know I struggle all the time with a vomit of detail in my picts.

I'm sure many a portrait subject has been happy the photographer used a fuzzy lens.

Maris · Nov 27, 2018

wyofilm said:
If more photographers paid attention to painters the world might be blessed with more compelling compositions. I know I struggle all the time with a vomit of detail in my picts.

I'm sure many a portrait subject has been happy the photographer used a fuzzy lens.

The great 19th century photographer Peter Henry Emerson had a crisis of confidence in the aesthetic worth of photography after talking with a painter. The painter asserted that painting will always be superior to photography. Given the same scene the photographer's version could well contain 100000 points of detail while the painter's version may include only 100. But, according to the painter, those 100 details are the ones that matter and make the picture worth looking at while the extra 99900 details offered by the photographer are mere clutter and rubbish that obscure and dilute the impact of the picture. Emerson took a long time to get over this revelation and take up the camera again. This just before the rise of the Fuzzy Wuzzies.

DREW WILEY · Nov 27, 2018

Well, when it comes to color, any halfway decent watercolorist can quickly mix hues that no film or printing paper has ever been capable of achieving. I've known that my whole life. But I enjoy photography too much to worry about that. Black and white photography fulfills my hunger for something more nuanced, though I'm referring to darkroom printing. Inkjet still looks pretty crude to me.

Berkeley Mike · Nov 29, 2018

Same touching-thing happens with film, though not so easy, and perhaps that simplicity could be the annoying matter for somebody ...[/QUOTE]

Any donkey can press a button and move a slider. It takes a photographer to make a good image.

MattKing · Nov 29, 2018

Berkeley Mike said:
Same touching-thing happens with film, though not so easy, and perhaps that simplicity could be the annoying matter for somebody ...

Any donkey can press a button and move a slider. It takes a photographer to make a good image.[/QUOTE]
To the best of my knowledge, donkeys have trouble pushing buttons or moving sliders!

removed account4 · Nov 30, 2018

MattKing said:
Any donkey can press a button and move a slider. It takes a photographer to make a good image.

To the best of my knowledge, donkeys have trouble pushing buttons or moving sliders![/QUOTE]

might be one of the donkeys from pinnocio? they had hands and fingers for a little while

DREW WILEY said:
Inkjet still looks pretty crude to me

under glass it is nearly impossible to tell an image from a darkroom and an image made with pigments apart
socalled experts in the field have been given 2 ( by me and im not even very good at either media from what i have been told, also by experts )
and they couldn't tell them apart kept saying " its THIS one" survey says "X" no its THIS one ! survey says " XX " its this one ?! " NEXT ! "
do what you like and like what you do in the end that's all that matters, not the medium its on .. painting photography ink pigment
you don't like it ... move on ..

DREW WILEY · Nov 30, 2018

I can see the difference across a room! Inkjets are composed of OPAQUE inks (of which some of the colorants are pigments, and some are not; and it is therefore incorrect and misleading to even term them "pigment prints"). Your list of "experts" must include Pinnochio himself. I'm not going to litigate yet another endless argument over who prefers this or that; but, for better or worse, inkjet is a different medium which inherently looks different.

faberryman · Nov 30, 2018

DREW WILEY said:
I'm not going to litigate yet another endless argument over who prefers this or that; but, for better or worse, inkjet is a different medium which inherently looks different.

Yes, inkjet is a different medium which inherently looks different. Not that that settles anything.

DREW WILEY · Nov 30, 2018

I really don't care. A watercolor painting looks different from opaque acrylic paint; they both look different from oil paint; all of them look different from fresco. And every kind of photographic color film or paper has its own signature, so to speak. I just pity people who try to use Fauxtoshop and inkjet as a substitute for what a true painter can do far better. But there are also things a camera does better. So in that respect, I can certainly sympathize with the philosophical quandary P.H. Emerson found himself in, before color photography was even practical. Thankfully, Emerson's own considerable sensitivity to light looks a lot more photographic than painterly, to me at least. I don't get hung up on the subject matter. Paintings influenced photographers, and will continue to do so; and photographs in turn inspired painters like Degas. I just don't have much patience with any wannabee look. Explore your chosen media for what it does best. Just because all kinds of media can be "colorful" doesn't mean there's necessarily any sophistication of color to it. And the palette of inkjet is pretty limited, though nowhere near as bad as the web. But even painters get lazy. I absolutely hated the look Motherwell got by taking pthalo green and other colorants right out of the tube without mixing them, and slathering them over a big canvas. Kincade's mass-produced paint-by-numbers kitchy landscapes were infinitely worse. I won't mention photographers.

removed account4 · Dec 1, 2018

DREW WILEY said:
I can see the difference across a room!

across the room ?!

DREW WILEY must be a pen name, are you STEVE AUSTIN ?

DREW WILEY · Dec 1, 2018

No, I don't have the eyes of a peregrine falcon. I wasn't referring to detail, like examining a print up close, but to recognizing the ways hues are rendered.

E. von Hoegh · Dec 2, 2018

I think it depends on the subject matter & lighting.
I usually like to see detail, however some subjects/scenes lack detail, so I concentrate on a different aspect (a decent composition goes without saying). In an architectural subject I want all the detail I can get on the negative, so it's going to be large format and the largest aperture I can get away with, I often use on 4x5 a wide angle meant for 8x10 which gives miles of movements; on 8x10 a 14" gives enough movement but I have to stand back, again using the lagest practical aperture.
For scenic stuff, I'll let the details go a bit but still work for an impression of overall sharpness, unless the subject is too "busy" & then I'll sometimes use the movements to isolate a portion of detail & let the rest go a bit soft.
If I want to enlarge the negative, I"ll stay away from small apertures. One of the few 8x10 negatives I printed is of the main building of the Ausable Club in St. Hubert's, N.Y., the print is 20" x 25" and you can read some of the bulletin board next to the entry, or you can stand back and study the whole building. It was done on Tmax 100 with a 10 3/4" lens midway between f16 and f22.

faberryman · Dec 2, 2018

E. von Hoegh said:
One of the few 8x10 negatives I printed is of the main building of the Ausable Club in St. Hubert's, N.Y., the print is 20" x 25" and you can read some of the bulletin board next to the entry, or you can stand back and study the whole building. It was done on Tmax 100 with a 10 3/4" lens midway between f16 and f22.

This is why I always bristle when people talk about the quality of a print qualified with "when viewed at a proper distance". If you are after a sharp print, it should be sharp all the way down.

E. von Hoegh · Dec 2, 2018

faberryman said:
This is why I always bristle when people talk about the quality of a print qualified with "when viewed at a proper distance". If you are after a sharp print, it should be sharp all the way down.

My thoughts exactly. That's the beauty of big negatives you can have it all - big grainless prints with incredible tonality (the lens was an uncoated Dagor frm about 1908) and detail that gives almost a 3D effect.
Besides, I am no artist, my pictorial attempts are truly "fuzzy wuzzies" & I think this is what Ansel was railing against. A "photograph" isn't a "picture" unless the photorapher has a vision to put on the film.

Kodiak · Jan 9, 2019

1. Ansell Adams was VERY intelligent person and knew so well what he is doing.
2. People that show "beauty by modifying Photographs" are materialists. They do it for sake of their pocket only and found no better way to make some decent money. They try to show beauty that never ever existed, beauty how THEY see it and suggest it to other by showing such pictures. I can not get a point in it. Is not Painting a better medium for them?
3. What Mortensen did was only try to copy work of other, like what Vermeer did, and Ansell A. was right. It will never be called art-work. No originality at very first, and it is already recorded (even in better way) what he did.

Mainecoonmaniac · Jan 9, 2019

I think Adams is very smart. I think he rebelled against Pictorialism and started a trend in photography where sharpness as seen as a creative tool. As with most trends, the pendulum is swinging the other way. Now some photographers are concerned with the bokeh of their lenses. Adams also manipulated photographs in the darkroom. He burned and dodged heavily in the darkroom to express his vision. I think it's the photographer's job to manipulate and modify to show what their version of beauty is. No right or wrongs here.

Berkeley Mike · Jan 9, 2019

What one "sees" is a mix of what's out there and what the brain does with it. As such, a simple record is inadequate. At a basic level dodging/burning, altering tonality/hue and, enlarging/framing/cropping modifies things to "make them fit" for the viewer. If these sorts of developments are allowed in our craft, the recorded image is not seen as the final product.

removed account4 · Jan 9, 2019

Kodiak said:
1. Ansell Adams was VERY intelligent person and knew so well what he is doing.
2. People that show "beauty by modifying Photographs" are materialists. They do it for sake of their pocket only and found no better way to make some decent money. They try to show beauty that never ever existed, beauty how THEY see it and suggest it to other by showing such pictures. I can not get a point in it. Is not Painting a better medium for them?
3. What Mortensen did was only try to copy work of other, like what Vermeer did, and Ansell A. was right. It will never be called art-work. No originality at very first, and it is already recorded (even in better way) what he did.

LOL
materialists ?
so buring and dodging and
enhancements that AA did weren't the same things?
people forget that AA was the biggest manipulator of them all
he was no purist by any stretch of the imagination

slackercrurster · Jan 9, 2019

jnanian said:
LOL
materialists ?
so buring and dodging and
enhancements that AA did weren't the same things?
people forget that AA was the biggest manipulator of them all
he was no purist by any stretch of the imagination

True, AA was big on darkroom magic.

All of this discussion is just egotistical BS anyway. Until they come down with a head photo cop or head photo dictator...do any goddamn thing you please...as long as legal.

Kodiak · Jan 9, 2019

What AA did is not against Photography. It all is simple:
A=truth
B=truth
A+B=truth as per Aristotle

Kodiak · Jan 9, 2019

What one "sees" is a mix of what's out there and what the brain does with it. As such, a simple record is inadequate. At a basic level dodging/burning, altering tonality/hue and, enlarging/framing/cropping modifies things to "make them fit" for the viewer. If these sorts of developments are allowed in our craft, the recorded image is not seen as the final product.

brain does not take a picture, Camera does. Which viewer you talk about. There was no internet at that time. Weston sold his Photographs beside the road for $10 or less. What they modified? = NOTHING. What you see on their Photographs was there and in the way shown...
Bokeh is only one property of a Photograph but not a must. What is bokeh on Egiptian paintings, and is it work of art? YEEEES.

removed account4 · Jan 9, 2019

Kodiak said:
What AA did is not against Photography. It all is simple:
A=truth
B=truth
A+B=truth as per Aristotle

same could be said for everything else then
what is often suggested is that AA photographed
the truth, what he saw what was there and his work
has nothing to do with the truth, it was all fantasy just
like mortenson's work all fantasy .. the only difference was
AA and his disciples claimed his work was more divine ...
whatever, its the same old same old, same post different month

personally i find all that grand landscape stuff to be kind of meh
now if AA did photograms, that would have been something else !

Berkeley Mike · Jan 10, 2019

Kodiak said:
What one "sees" is a mix of what's out there and what the brain does with it. As such, a simple record is inadequate. At a basic level dodging/burning, altering tonality/hue and, enlarging/framing/cropping modifies things to "make them fit" for the viewer. If these sorts of developments are allowed in our craft, the recorded image is not seen as the final product.

brain does not take a picture, Camera does. Which viewer you talk about. There was no internet at that time. Weston sold his Photographs beside the road for $10 or less. What they modified? = NOTHING. What you see on their Photographs was there and in the way shown...
Bokeh is only one property of a Photograph but not a must. What is bokeh on Egiptian paintings, and is it work of art? YEEEES.

Literally, no. However the brain does apprehend an overall impression and supports it with subsequent scanning, infill of areas, color correction, response to emotional and memory content. So we do much more than look.

Didn't Ansel Adams called it the "Fuzzy wuzzies"?

Moderator

Privacy & Transparency

Privacy & Transparency