Help me reverse engineer Sieff

pierods · Jun 2, 2025

Sieff was known for very rich blacks and “auras”.
The auras are not extremely difficult to do, the blacks are.

Case in point…this photo.

What I am more or less certain about:

- he used either Leica or Hasselblad, mostly Hasselblad on assignments (maybe important or not, just stating it)
- he used only tri-x (which I think is not the tri-x of today)
- he used only d-76
- he was capable of spending a whole day at the enlarger on a single image, and I think he even said himself that his images were 90% darkroom

What I suppose:
- baryta paper. Is it enough for those blacks? I only saw such blacks in my photos with b/w reversed film.
- normal dev times and painstaking darkening of black areas under the enlarger. Faces and other details are not high contrast
- OR…high contrast dev and then take advantage of the high forgiveness of tri-x to bring back some things to normal contrast

Feel free to contradict me. I have so much to learn from people with so much more experience than me. Thanks.

ic-racer · Jun 2, 2025

I don't see anything special there. That is obviously a scan of a print. Who knows what the print looks like. Have you seen the print?

pierods · Jun 2, 2025

ic-racer said:
I don't see anything special there. That is obviously a scan of a print. Who knows what the print looks like. Have you seen the print?

Yes have books from Sieff. It looks like that.

retina_restoration · Jun 2, 2025

Mostly what I see is a really horrible burn and dodge job.

AnselMortensen · Jun 2, 2025

Agreed on the "aura"...horrible dodging, but it was the '70's, and maybe it was his 'schtick'.
Mid 1970's he used a Leica M3 with a 21mm lens, and also a Nikon F2 with15mm and 20mm lenses...and Tri-X.
(Info sourced from an October 1978 issue of Camera35 Photo World magazine.)

Lachlan Young · Jun 2, 2025

pierods said:
he used only tri-x (which I think is not the tri-x of today)

Not something to worry yourself over. It was grainier and less sharp. Ilford/ Kentmere can bring a bit more grit if you want - and ignore the nonsense about any of them being 'softer' - respect their shadow speed and you'll be fine.

pierods said:
he used only d-76
- he was capable of spending a whole day at the enlarger on a single image, and I think he even said himself that his images were 90% darkroom

What I suppose:
- baryta paper. Is it enough for those blacks? I only saw such blacks in my photos with b/w reversed film.
- normal dev times and painstaking darkening of black areas under the enlarger. Faces and other details are not high contrast
- OR…high contrast dev and then take advantage of the high forgiveness of tri-x to bring back some things to normal contrast

You don't need special developers - that's the key takeaway that you need to know.

The rest is about balancing subject contrast, exposure, process time and paper grade/ enlarger head type. In other words, flatter light conditions, pushing the film a bit and/ or printing with a condenser enlarger head with lots of theatrically heavy burning of the sort that mortally offends a particular type of amateur. And very extensive use of potassium ferricyanide bleach.

Yes, you can get solid enough blacks with FB paper. Just bear in mind that if you are seeing high quality image repro, you are not necessarily seeing an exact representation of a darkroom print - but rather something that looks like it could/ should look like.

Donald Qualls · Jun 2, 2025

retina_restoration said:
Mostly what I see is a really horrible burn and dodge job.

That was the first thing that came to my mind as well -- burning down the sky to bring out cloud texture without taking the care to make it less obvious. Then again, with the exposure conditions that are likely present on that negative, it would be almost impossible to burn the sky enough (at least in a wet darkroom) to matter without creating some "halo".

Alex Benjamin · Jun 2, 2025

Potassium ferricyanide is your friend . The "aura" is quite easy to do if you use bleach with a fine brush so as not to spill over the contours of the person. The brush also allows you to define the shape and "depth" of the aura around that central figure.

pierods · Jun 2, 2025

Wow thanks, I knew you guys would be able to decrypt him...I need to find out about the bleach and the pot fer.

Donald Qualls · Jun 2, 2025

pierods said:
find out about the bleach and the pot fer.

The potassium ferricyanide *is* the bleach. Or at least when it's mixed with sodium thiosulfate it forms Farmer's Reducer, which removes developed silver in a somewhat controllable manner.

Alex Benjamin · Jun 2, 2025

Donald Qualls said:
The potassium ferricyanide *is* the bleach. Or at least when it's mixed with sodium thiosulfate it forms Farmer's Reducer, which removes developed silver in a somewhat controllable manner.

This

Here's a demonstration by John Finch. He's bleaching the entire print at first, but you can also mix a very small solution and use a brush to bleach only the spot you want.

In this video, starting at 4:40, you see for a few seconds printer Nathalie Loparelli using a brush to local bleach her print. Watch the technique. When local bleaching, you need to constantly wash with running water so that the bleach doesn't spill into areas you don't want to bleach.

pierods said:
I knew you guys would be able to decrypt him...

Well, just to be clear, I don't know if that's how he did it, but I'm offering you a pretty good way to get something very close in terms of result. Try it and let us know.

MattKing · Jun 2, 2025

An example of the benefits of using Farmer's Reducer and localized bleaching when printing a negative exposed in deep shade with a Brownie Hawkeye

GregY · Jun 2, 2025

It looks much more of a dodging shadow than PF bleaching. I've never seen his prints in a gallery, but i have a book of his work somewhere and the bold, contrasty look is very much his style.

Alex Benjamin · Jun 2, 2025

GregY said:
It looks much more of a dodging shadow than PF bleaching.

It's one of these cases where "reverse engineering" will mean actually trying both in the darkroom. Seperately or together, as it's possible that he first dodged to get the "halo" and then bleached it to get it to glow.

Lachlan Young · Jun 2, 2025

Alex Benjamin said:
It's one of these cases where "reverse engineering" will mean actually trying both in the darkroom. Seperately or together, as it's possible that he first dodged to get the "halo" and then bleached it to get it to glow.

Without trying to spoon-feed the people who should experience it for themselves, bleached transition edges are pretty distinctive.

Alex Benjamin · Jun 2, 2025

Lachlan Young said:
Without trying to spoon-feed the people who should experience it for themselves, bleached transition edges are pretty distinctive.

Without seeing the actual print, it's only guesswork.

Pieter12 · Jun 2, 2025

If you are in Los Angeles, you could try contacting Marc Valasella at Contact LA. He printed for SIeff. https://www.contactla.com/workshops

Alex Benjamin · Jun 2, 2025

@pierods : if you understand French, you'll get your answer in this video by photographer Michel Viard, who knew Sieff well and worked with him. At the 20:26 mark, he talks about Sieff's darkroom technique with skies, which was to burn the sky but leave an edge on the lower part. He also talks about Sieff's fondness for Potassium ferricyanide and that he used it with a brush, notably to lighten skin tones.

Gives this as an example of Sieff's burning of the sky. Good chance ferri was used to lighten the wooden path and the bush.

pierods · Jun 2, 2025

Pieter12 said:
If you are in Los Angeles, you could try contacting Marc Valasella at Contact LA. He printed for SIeff. https://www.contactla.com/workshops

I am in Europe But I'll inquire.

pierods · Jun 2, 2025

Alex Benjamin said:
@pierods : if you understand French, you'll get your answer in this video by photographer Michel Viard, who knew Sieff well and worked with him. At the 20:26 mark, he talks about Sieff's darkroom technique with skies, which was to burn the sky but leave an edge on the lower part. He also talks about Sieff's fondness for Potassium ferricyanide and that he used it with a brush, notably to lighten skin tones.

Gives this as an example of Sieff's burning of the sky. Good chance ferri was used to lighten the wooden path and the bush.

View attachment 400039

I understand French. Thanks!

GregY · Jun 2, 2025

Alex Benjamin said:
@pierods : if you understand French, you'll get your answer in this video by photographer Michel Viard, who knew Sieff well and worked with him. At the 20:26 mark, he talks about Sieff's darkroom technique with skies, which was to burn the sky but leave an edge on the lower part. He also talks about Sieff's fondness for Potassium ferricyanide and that he used it with a brush, notably to lighten skin tones.

Gives this as an example of Sieff's burning of the sky. Good chance ferri was used to lighten the wooden path and the bush.

View attachment 400039

Thanks Alex. That's a very informative video. JLS was very unique and avant garde. You could always tell his photos at a glance.

pierods · Jun 2, 2025

One last question (I am not good at zone system etc).

If you look at the original image, the tire is in a way lower zone than the face of the woman.

So I imagine he must have proceded like that:

- meter for detail on the tire (the darkest part where you want to have detail etc)
- make sure that the face of the woman is within the acceptable range for his lens/film/dev combo, and within that range, determine whether he had to shorten development to compress highlights (the image looks like it was taken in overcast conditions so not necessary)
- take the photo
- develop according to above
- do bleaching

Correct?

Alex Benjamin · Jun 2, 2025

pierods said:
One last question (I am not good at zone system etc).

If you look at the original image, the tire is in a way lower zone than the face of the woman.

So I imagine he must have proceded like that:

- meter for detail on the tire (the darkest part where you want to have detail etc)
- make sure that the face of the woman is within the acceptable range for his lens/film/dev combo, and within that range, determine whether he had to shorten development to compress highlights (the image looks like it was taken in overcast conditions so not necessary)
- take the photo
- develop according to above
- do bleaching

Correct?

If you're going to reverse-engineer Sieff, leave the zone system out of the equation. If you know how to meter, you don't need it to get the details you want where you want them. If this was really an overcast, low-contrast day, metering would have been pretty simple.

I remember seeing somewhere that he used Tri-X in D-76 (1:3), but I can't find the reference, so take it with a grain of potassium ferricyanide.

Now if you want to go all the way with the reverse-engineering stuff, make sure you get the reflection of either the photographer or someone else on the car's fender .

Alex Benjamin · Jun 2, 2025

...should add that metering in order to get good shadow detail was not invented with the zone system. It's just basic metering 101 and has always been.

koraks · Jun 3, 2025

pierods said:
- make sure that the face of the woman is within the acceptable range for his lens/film/dev combo, and within that range, determine whether he had to shorten development to compress highlights (the image looks like it was taken in overcast conditions so not necessary)

It's B&W negative. There'll be -something- in the highlights, regardless. Meter for important shadows, don't worry about all the rest.

As said, most of what you're seeing in this particular 'look' is rather crude burning & dodging.

Alex Benjamin said:
Good chance ferri was used to lighten the wooden path and the bush.

Possibly, but given the fairly hard edge across the path around the bottom of the reeds, I think part of what you're seeing is also just a difference in print exposure.
Ferricyanide in this particular case would have had the disadvantage of bleeding out in the black area next to the boards, lightening the dmax and turning its color somewhat. In practice that tends to look rather yuck.

If I would want to create a print like that, I'd dial in grade 5 regardless of the negative, determine a base exposure for the darkest part I want any differentiation in and then start burning all the rest with a simple piece of card. It's pretty straightforward.

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