Metering lower, pushing higher

DREW WILEY · Sep 18, 2023

Well if he did - something I've never encountered - AA would have used that in a rubber band sense : you stretch (tug at) or contract the overall range to fit what you've already factored into zones. There's more than one place in his book, The Negative, his phrasing apt to be confusing to a beginner. But still, his own use of these terms was different from most of what has landed on this thread because it was ZS specific, and not a vague misappropriation of color lab usage. Expansion and Contraction stuck,
along with its practical vehicle, Plus and Minus development.

BrianShaw · Sep 18, 2023

Going back to a 1980 photography text book, I find a chapter called "Development for Increased Film Speed; Push-development".

In 1981, Langford's Darkroom Handbook has extensive discussion of, both pushing and pulling of B&W, color neg and color slides... using those terms.

In 1983, Adams used the terms "expansion" and "contraction" to discuss the same concept in Volume 2, The Negative.

And much to my surprise, Roger Hicks (bless his little heart) writes extensively of the technical details associated with non-nomimal exposure and commensurate compensation in development but only uses the term "pushing" in quotation marks in the index but never in the text.

Apparently it was a well established concept and verbiage as faar back as the 1980's with "push/pull" terminology. Which terminology one prefers seems to depend on which church one worships in. The notion that professionals, or their labs, talk one way and amateurs talk another doesn't resonate well with me as any lab I've ever used offered phs/pull services and serviced both professional and amateur communities indiscriminately.

This was a fun use of some spare time.

BrianShaw · Sep 18, 2023

Oh, and in the 1966 US Navy Photographer's Mate 3&2 Training Course, there is discussion of the effects of exposure and development variations using the terms "underexposure, overexposure, underdevelopment and overdevelopment", with gamma as the measure of development contrast. None of those other pesky words were used... even in the index.

Doremus Scudder · Sep 18, 2023

I'm amused that the 1908s are considered the distant past.

Maybe we should be asking what Carlton Watkins or Edward Curtis or Peter Brit et al. did for exposure and development.

Adams and Weston were photographing in the 1930s and 40s seriously and they learned a well-established craft.

Best,

Doremus

BrianShaw · Sep 18, 2023

Doremus Scudder said:
I'm amused that the 1908s are considered the distant past.

Maybe we should be asking what Carlton Watkins or Edward Curtis or Peter Brit et al. did for exposure and development.

Adams and Weston were photographing in the 1930s and 40s seriously and they learned a well-established craft.

Best,

Doremus

I’ll assume that “1908” a transposition! I’m amused also.

BrianShaw · Sep 18, 2023

And regarding Edward Curtis… I actually visit him periodically and will ask him. Standby for a response.

Doremus Scudder · Sep 18, 2023

1980s... (sigh) Just got back from a medical procedure; the anesthetic must still be clouding my poor little brain.

Sirius Glass · Sep 19, 2023

DREW WILEY said:
Well if he did - something I've never encountered - AA would have used that in a rubber band sense : you stretch (tug at) or contract the overall range to fit what you've already factored into zones. There's more than one place in his book, The Negative, his phrasing apt to be confusing to a beginner. But still, his own use of these terms was different from most of what has landed on this thread because it was ZS specific, and not a vague misappropriation of color lab usage. Expansion and Contraction stuck,
along with its practical vehicle, Plus and Minus development.

I found Ansel Adams' Zone System development was confusing until I use expansion and contraction instead of push and pull.

BrianShaw · Sep 19, 2023

It's a shame that synomyms seem so confusing...

faberryman · Sep 19, 2023

DREW WILEY said:
...a vague misappropriation of color lab usage.

Push processing is not a vague appropriation of color lab usage, and it has nothing to do with the Zone System, although some people who are confused about the Zone System may erroneously use the term. The word "push" doesn't even appear in The Negative in any context. I learned about push processing within months of beginning photography in 1973. It is simply exposing film at an exposure index higher than box speed, and developing for longer than usual. The idea is not to make the perfect negative but to get an image, however lousy, that you would not otherwise be able to get at box speed and normal development.

Vaughn · Sep 19, 2023

BrianShaw said:
It's a shame that synomyms seem so confusing...

That is 'synonyms', please...

I have been on a low carb diet for a few years, but all of a sudden I crave cinnamon toast...

Pioneer · Sep 19, 2023

faberryman said:
Push processing is not a vague appropriation of color lab usage, and it has nothing to do with the Zone System, although some people who are confused about the Zone System may erroneously use the term. The word "push" doesn't even appear in The Negative. I learned about push processing within months of beginning photography in 1973. It is simply exposing film at an exposure index higher than box speed, and developing for longer than usual. The idea is not to make the perfect negative but to get an image, however lousy, that you would not otherwise be able to get at box speed and normal development. The editor of the paper would yell at you if you told him there wasn't enough light to get any pictures. He would say: "You idiot, haven't you ever heard of push processing?"

I was kind of waiting for this. Push processing in all my line of work was NEVER a fine art process. When you are doing an investigation in the middle of the night and need pictures you do what you can. You use flash and any other technique you have at your disposal. You are not hanging these pictures on someone's wall over their couch, though I am not sure that hasn't ever happened. You are trying to document something with pictures where courts, insurance companies, newspapers or magazines need some visual evidence.

Of course nowadays it is all done digitally so "push" or "pull" is only a vague reference to something that was a necessary practice at the time. You can bet your bottom dollar that Weegee pushed his film and would have cared less if anyone thought it was appropriate.

MattKing · Sep 19, 2023

faberryman said:
Push processing is not a vague appropriation of color lab usage, and it has nothing to do with the Zone System, although some people who are confused about the Zone System may erroneously use the term. The word "push" doesn't even appear in The Negative. I learned about push processing within months of beginning photography in 1973. It is simply exposing film at an exposure index higher than box speed, and developing for longer than usual. The idea is not to make the perfect negative but to get an image, however lousy, that you would not otherwise be able to get at box speed and normal development. The editor of the paper would yell at you if you told him there wasn't enough light to get any pictures. He would say: "You idiot, haven't you ever heard of push processing?"

On this we will differ - slightly.
The processing part - yes. That was a "push" back then.
But the exposing part? No, that was just under-exposing, or more likely doing the best we could with the light available.
The other available alternative on the processing side back then was Diafine or Acufine. That was a more viable option with 1970s Tri-X than it is now.

Doremus Scudder · Sep 19, 2023

Matt,

Sometime along the way, probably back in the dark ages of the 1960s or 70s , underexposure and push processing became inextricably linked. A one-stop underexposure got a one-stop push (whatever that was), two stops under a two-stop push, etc. That parlance still exists, however imprecise.

That makes a lot of sense if the primary reason for push processing was to get photos from low-light situations, where the negatives were necessarily underexposed.

Best,

Doremus

Metering lower, pushing higher

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