Fifty Years of Photography Examined

[Donald Miller]

One of the things that I noticed when I visited the Worcester Art Museum Show "Keeping Shadows" was that there has been a marked difference in printing styles that has evolved over the fifty years that this show encompasses.

The first noticeable difference was that the overall contrast of the old prints was much lower. Yet there were many prints that clearly showed empty blacks. This was as true for those of Ansel Adams as for any of the other photographers.

This lower contrast was true for those that one would normally assume such as salt prints, albumen, carbro, and platinum...but it was also true of silver prints as well. These earlier prints also showed less local contrast as well. However these earlier prints showed a much smoother tonal scale.

When I compared these earlier prints to the later prints by Linda Butler the much higher overall and local contrast of the Butler prints was astounding. Butler's prints exhibited a much greater luminosity.

Some of these differences are apparently due to differences in process and materials. Some is apparently due to a difference in the tastes of our time.

 

[Claire Senft]

Each to their own. I prefer my prints to be no blacker than necessary. I much dislike the harsh contrast so much in vogue today.

 

[lee]

I have noticed the same thing Donald. I think it might have to do with the materials used back a bit ago. While some of the materials were really good in 50s and earlier I would think not so good.

lee\c

 

[Charles Webb]

Claire,
I am in total agreement with you! Regardless of the trend, I will continue to do it my way!

Charlie............

 

[avandesande]

I don't think people really realize how poor some of those older materials are. You can see grain in contact prints of 25 speed film.

 

[Jim Chinn]

I think some of it is a product of materials and advancement in technique. I have seen a lot of Ansel Adams prints from all kinds of different eras, but I don't think they can hold a candle to a Bruce Birnbaum print in terms of lumiosity and local contrast and especially in the range of subtle tonality in shadows. But then again adding those things to an Adams print might totally ruin the impact of the work.

While many bemoan the loss of particular paper or film, I think there are many photographers today that do just fine with today's materials and produce work technically superior to the likes of Adams and E Weston. Although I don't think I have seen anything that is better then prints by Bullock and Brett Weston. Brett used max black a lot in many images but it works as part of the composition and balance of the image.

It would be interesting to see how a famous Adams negative would look printed on AZO or with contemporary masking techniques. Of course better technique or materials does not always make for a better final image.

Also today we live in world of constant bombardment of high quality, vivid reproductions all around us. It may be that our brains have been conditioned to require a greater range of contrast in images and the extra apparent sharpness that enhanced local contrast provides.

.

 

[Gerald Koch]

Toward the end of his life Ansel Adams made prints that were darker overall in tone than his earlier ones. This is evident when you compare prints from the same negative.

I wonder if this trend toward darker prints is part of a larger trend. For example, classical music is now being played are at a much faster tempo that what was considered appropriate a few decades ago.