Enlarging without dodging.

retina_restoration · Aug 29, 2025

Keith Tapscott. said:
You summed up my thoughts exactly. I'm beginning to regret posting the link to his blog now.

Please don't. I think we've all learned some things — including how darkroom tutorials are shared in 2025 — and I think some discussion is meaningful. I've discovered that some people interpreted Andrew's article as "this is the way you must do things" and not simply a brief article discussing his own process, wishing to share something he does, with others. I'm honestly surprised that some have interpreted the post as they have, but I can also understand how his choice of language leaves room to be misinterpreted as "this is what you should do".

This illustrates one of the great hazards of publishing anything on the Internet: there will always be some people who don't like what is being offered to them or strongly disagree with it, and they are happy to engage with their community to complain about what they didn't like. It's the way our modern online life is now: maximum engagement has been built into the system and so that's what we often get: maximum enragement. Navigating that can be very frustrating and it wastes time and emotional energy. I quit all social media last year (I don't think of Flickr as social media, since it doesn't foster engagement in the same way) and I don't miss the bickering and pushing back and angry diatribes. But it's hard to avoid completely when you venture onto the Web.

retina_restoration · Aug 29, 2025

albireo said:
Notice that nowhere in his piece does he preface any of the truisms above with an 'in my opinion'.

In my view, any tasteful criticism or commentary of this sort of zealotry is completely fair game.

What makes me immensely sad is that I know Andrew and we have conversed many time in private, and he's a very gentle, kind, and thoughtful person, and I think he would be very hurt to think that anyone interpreted anything he wrote as "zealotry".

albireo · Aug 29, 2025

retina_restoration said:
What makes me immensely sad is that I know Andrew and we have conversed many time in private, and he's a very gentle, kind, and thoughtful person, and I think he would be very hurt to think that anyone interpreted anything he wrote as "zealotry".

I'm sure many of us are much nicer individuals beneath the social media personas we choose to project!

Don_ih · Aug 29, 2025

I don't see zealotry in his article. I see an outline of how to attain his results, for those who are interested in doing similar. Everyone is free to disagree with it and, if you want different results or have a different way to get similar results, that's fine.

Alex Benjamin · Aug 29, 2025

retina_restoration said:
What makes me immensely sad is that I know Andrew and we have conversed many time in private, and he's a very gentle, kind, and thoughtful person, and I think he would be very hurt to think that anyone interpreted anything he wrote as "zealotry".

I have no problem believe this is the case. As I mentioned earlier (#49), misunderstandings have come not from the blogger itself but from the mode of communication. Bloggers write too fast, and write for impact and engagement. Visceral ractions from readers are kind of built into the system.

Again, the discussion about the necessity (or not) of printing and dodging is really interesting. It reminded me of this comment by Neil Selkirk, the only person autorized to print Diane Arbus' photos, which I've quoted in another thread:

"Allan [Arbus] introduced her to the process of mixing the proprietary Kodak print developers Dektol and Selectol-Sof in differing proportions in order to control contrast. At some point, she may have switched to the similar, more thoroughly controllable but time-consuming Beers developer. As the process of my trying to match precisely her prints proceeded, the most unexpected fact emerged, namely that she apparently never dodged or burned a print. The sole quality that she chose to exercise control over was contrast. Using contrast-controlling developer, all of Diane's prints sat happily on either Portriga 3 or 4... Again and again Diane's technique would enable me to effortlessly generate a print that would have won accolades from the academic printing establishment, only to have her comparison print command me to dilute the richness of the result. On the other hand, she would often print far harder than would optimise the rendering of the information in the negative."

Vetus · Aug 29, 2025

You could give a negative to 6 people and they would all print it differently, how they arrive at their desired print is up to them. Some like a quick low waste repeatable way, others enjoy trial and error and a bin full of prints. A lot of the advice you find on the net is confusing or misleading. Nicholas Linden (see pg. 1) gives a solid approach worth following in my humble opinion.

koraks · Aug 29, 2025

Keith Tapscott. said:
I'm beginning to regret posting the link to his blog now.

As the others said - don't be. Criticism says something about the critic as much (or more so) than about the work that's being criticized. What's being criticized here is moreover one particular piece, which isn't yours and I don't think anyone would hold you responsible for whatever problem they have with it. To the contrary, since this is a discussion forum, what many of us like the most is a proper discussion, so we're by definition grateful to anyone offering something up to talk about.

retina_restoration said:
What makes me immensely sad is that I know Andrew and we have conversed many time in private, and he's a very gentle, kind, and thoughtful person, and I think he would be very hurt to think that anyone interpreted anything he wrote as "zealotry".

Duly noted, and thanks for sharing that, too. It's all too easy to project an inaccurate image of the person behind the words we read. In doing so, it's all too easy to do injustice to them. You're right for pointing this out.

retina_restoration · Aug 29, 2025

koraks said:
Duly noted, and thanks for sharing that, too. It's all too easy to project an inaccurate image of the person behind the words we read. In doing so, it's all too easy to do injustice to them. You're right for pointing this out.

The unfortunate fact is that on the Internet, people say all kinds of hurtful things that they would never say to someone's face. That's something to keep in mind when you start writing something you're about to share with thousands of strangers on the Web.

Guillaume Zuili · Aug 29, 2025

retina_restoration said:
What makes me immensely sad is that I know Andrew and we have conversed many time in private, and he's a very gentle, kind, and thoughtful person, and I think he would be very hurt to think that anyone interpreted anything he wrote as "zealotry".

Very sorry you feel this way and like others already said please don’t.
I was harsh but not against the person, against the blog concept in itself.
English is not my native language and I wish I could have all the nuances that I have in french.
A good friend of mine was teaching painting for years. When covid hit he suddenly had to teach painting classes online. Doing so by zoom and emails.
As a result he resigned because he couldn’t properly teach anything to his students. Keeping doing this would have been being part of a hoax as he used to say.

This is what I’m talking about. I have nothing against this man but the medium used.
I strongly believe that you learn this craft while doing it in the darkroom and that any literature or blog dont do much. Except maybe the desire to go to the darkroom.

Vaughn · Aug 29, 2025

koraks said:
I do want to apologize for the panties remark; responding with rudeness to earlier rudeness wasn't the correct way of handling the matter.

BS, koraks. Perhaps it was due to shaky use of the English language, but you insulted Cliveh, and when he called your insult rediculous, you doubled down. Period.

You wrote...

'Necessity' is of course rather subjective in this context. Looking at the gallery of B&W images on your website, I personally would have applied burning and/or dodging to about 95% if I were to print them for presentation. That doesn't mean it's "necessary". Just that I think they could look even better that way. I have a feeling that the man who wrote this blog we're commenting on would have made the same argument.

A photographer who is serious about their work prints it the way the best expresses what they wish to convey. To tell cliveh you could do a better job of conveying his emotions and other content of his images by simply doing a better job of burning and dodging is rude and simply rediculous. You abuse your position as a moderator.

Milpool · Aug 29, 2025

Lol shame on you. Them’s thread locking words.

Vaughn said:
You abuse your position as a moderator.

Mike Lopez · Aug 29, 2025

Vaughn said:
BS, koraks. Perhaps it was due to shaky use of the English language, but you insulted Cliveh, and when he called your insult rediculous, you doubled down. Period.

You wrote...

A photographer who is serious about their work prints it the way the best expresses what they wish to convey. To tell cliveh you could do a better job of conveying his emotions and other content of his images by simply doing a better job of burning and dodging is rude and simply rediculous. You abuse your position as a moderator.

I didn't read it that way at all. There could have been a hint of sexism in referring to "panties" getting twisted, but I went back and looked, and @koraks initially said underwear, not panties.

pentaxuser · Aug 29, 2025

Keith Tapscott. said:
I believe that the author was just pointing out that if enough exposure was given for a maximum black for the clearest part of the negative, then the rest of the print just needs additional exposure rather than it being the actual way he exposes his darkroom prints.

More an article to think about how we produce a print rather than being a technical article.

That sounds like a good summary of Andrew's article

pentaxuser

MattKing · Aug 29, 2025

Vaughn said:
BS, koraks. Perhaps it was due to shaky use of the English language, but you insulted Cliveh, and when he called your insult rediculous, you doubled down. Period.

You wrote...

A photographer who is serious about their work prints it the way the best expresses what they wish to convey. To tell cliveh you could do a better job of conveying his emotions and other content of his images by simply doing a better job of burning and dodging is rude and simply rediculous. You abuse your position as a moderator.

@koraks didn't say that Vaughan.

He said:

What he posted was fundamentally different from what you have posted - there was no reference in his post to anything being "better", rather a reference to what would look better for him. In fact, what @koraks said was essentially the same sort of message as yours, when you said: "I do much less dodging/burning. I would say the necessity of burning/dodging is driven by the photographer and their image, rather than 'proper' exposure and development. I just tend to push most my editing work up to the front end (during image creation) rather than in post-processing. "
In other words it was a post that included a preference that was personal to the poster. Just as your post reflects your preferences. There is no content in that post that says anything about what @cliveh - or in fact anyone else - ought to do.

If @koraks had posted what you suggest he did - a criticism of how @cliveh printed his own images - it may still have been acceptable. Tough criticism isn't "rude" nor is it forbidden on Photrio. But that isn't what was posted, so its a moot point.

Vaughn · Aug 29, 2025

Mike Lopez said:
I didn't read it that way at all. There could have been a hint of sexism in referring to "panties" getting twisted, but I went back and looked, and @koraks initially said underwear, not panties.

I mis-quoted koraks "underwear", and tried not to do it again in my next posts because of that hint...my apologies.

But my issue is that cliveh did take it negatively, and for good reason. And koraks snapped back and then doubled down

This is not the case of a photographer attempting to make pretty, if not beautiful, prints -- and eager for ways to improve and make them even more so. The case appears more to be someone who is creating/constructing their images with their own intent to create a specific feel or mood, or have its own message.

Without knowing that intent, suggesting that he could help make 95% of cliveh's website work (look) better (to anyone) with a little dodging and burning is unhelpful and insulting. It could very well, and most likely would, destroy the work -- by which I mean erase what cliveh may have been trying to say with them.

Matt:

What he posted was fundamentally different from what you have posted - there was no reference in his post to anything being "better", rather a reference to what would look better for him.

Which cliveh rightly took negatively.

Edit: italics and last quote

pentaxuser · Aug 29, 2025

I have just noticed via the sidebar that Andrew Sanderson, the article's author, has just joined us and was last seen browsing this very thread

pentaxuser

MattKing · Aug 29, 2025

Vaughn said:
I mis-quoted koraks "underwear", and tried not to do it again in my next posts because of that hint...my apologies.

But my issue is that cliveh did take it negatively, and for good reason. And koraks snapped back and then doubled down

This is not the case of a photographer attempting to make pretty, if not beautiful, prints -- and eager for ways to improve and make them even more so. The case appears more to be someone who is creating/constructing their images with their own intent to create a specific feel or mood, or have its own meaasge.

Without knowing that intent, suggesting that he could help make 95% of cliveh's website work better with a little dodging and burning is unhelpful and insulting. It could very well, and most likely would, destroy the work -- by which I mean erase what cliveh may have been trying to say with them.

See my previous post @Vaughn - you are interpreting @koraks words in a way that is different from how others interpret them.

retina_restoration · Aug 29, 2025

Have any of you read any of the other posts on Andrew's blog? He's got some great stuff. I just read his article on learning how to evaluate negatives for optimal darkroom printing, and it's got some very good information in it. It's geared towards newcomers to film work, but I bet many in the film community can learn something from it.

Keith Tapscott. · Aug 29, 2025

pentaxuser said:
I have just noticed via the sidebar that Andrew Sanderson, the article's author, has just joined us and was last seen browsing this very thread

pentaxuser

I really do regret starting this thread and I hope it hasn't caused Andrew any distress.

MattKing · Aug 29, 2025

Keith Tapscott. said:
I really do regret starting this thread and I hope it hasn't caused Andrew any distress.

I'll say welcome to him - assuming he is reading this.
I expect that reading the thread will be useful to him, as it is always helpful to learn what others glean from the things one writes/shares - even if that doesn't match what one intends to communicate.

Truzi · Aug 29, 2025

Vaughn said:
BS, koraks. Perhaps it was due to shaky use of the English language, (snip)

I had thought similarly, but to use such a colloquialism demonstrates enough grasp of English to support your thoughts.

pentaxuser · Aug 29, 2025

MattKing said:
I'll say welcome to him - assuming he is reading this.
I expect that reading the thread will be useful to him, as it is always helpful to learn what others glean from the things one writes/shares - even if that doesn't match what one intends to communicate.

He has read what a very small but very active minority of Photrio has had to say about his article. Is it representative of Photrio's membership views? Truth be told I have no idea as we seldom learn what non participating members have to say.

If it were me then I'd wonder whether it is worth continuing. Those who value what he has to say will continue to do so irrespective of his presence here and those who don't are unlikely to change their minds from what I see.

Of course I could be quite wrong in my assessment of how he feels and I hope I am. I hope we see and hear more from him. There is plenty of room for Andrew and his experience and skills here as has been stated by some others

pentaxuser

Bill Burk · Aug 29, 2025

@Guillaume Zuili I like that quote "So no blog. Darkroom !"

I may be coming to ask you questions sometime. Had some prints that just didn't do right on Kodabromide F4 so I went to the camera store and asked if they had any Lith developer.

I was thinking they might have some traditional graphic arts concentrate. But no, I came home with a master kit suited for Tim Rudman.

Cheers,

Bill

awty · Aug 29, 2025

Don_ih said:
I was going to say, his examples in that article are on the heavy-handed side and not representative of his actual work. You're lucky to have a couple of his prints.

He may have selected those photos because the effect he's talking about is pretty obvious in them.

It seems as amateurish as my stuff, but looking at his stuff on line, he's way more capable.

awty · Aug 29, 2025

Keith Tapscott. said:
A short article about expressive printing in the darkroom.

Expressive printing.

Scanning and inverting is not enough.

masterprinter.substack.com

I think it's a simple explanation that any amateur darkroom printer should try. Mastering printing takes years and you should as many methods as possible.

Enlarging without dodging.

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