New Here -- Multiple Enlarger Printing

Look up these names, Bayard, Rejlander and Robinson for early photographers who practiced what’s called “Syntactical Correction: Combination Printing” in “The Keepers of Light” by William Crawford Morgan & Morgan, 1979. An excellent book but not as free and easy to get these days.

So far I have not come across a set-up of several identical/similar enlargers for use on one print in any of my textbooks. As so many other concepts I read about at Apug it may be something only well known in North-America.

AgX said:

So far I have not come across a set-up of several identical/similar enlargers for use on one print in any of my textbooks. As so many other concepts I read about at Apug it may be something only well known in North-America.

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Probably your textbooks were published during the “backlash against pictorialism” era.

I have european textbooks in print in different languages from around 1900 to the start of internet. Mostly photo-engineering orientated. Maybe accidentially I got a distorted view on some matters, sad enough no other Europeans chime in... But also on more engineering-kind matters that here at Apug are regarded by most as holy grail, I cannot even find a trace at german textbooks, magazines or manufacturer manuals.
And this may explain why sometimes I am even led astray as at the start of this thread.

Bill Burk said:

Lootens, in the book “on Photographic Enlarging and Print Quality” 1944 shows a three enlarger setup and the print he made from it. A good reference book that will be easy to find. I have an extra copy if you want it.]

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In fact, Lootens devotes an entire chapter to this subject of "Combination Printing", centered around his example of how to combine a subject-negative with a background-negative. Yes, it's a good book. I was amused that burning was called "printing-in" back then.

Mark Overton

@AgX there's a bit of distrust of people who combination print. You'll find some people even refuse to call Uelsmann a photographer. There's long been a fear of making "untrustworthy" photos, so maybe that's why it's a bit difficult to find instructional texts on how to do it. I don't think any of the books I have mention anything more complicated than using a second negative to replace the sky (not that I have an extensive collection).

Interesting topic, I'll have to keep this in mind for a future experiment

Don Heisz said:

You'll find some people even refuse to call Uelsmann a photographer. .

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Never ran across this in any critique, review or book in print. Any references? Recent social media trend?
In my opinion he is the definition of film photographer. This is what we do...create photographs in the darkroom. Maybe the purpose of the photographer's darkroom has been forgotten. It is not a place to make prints of snapshots; that is the function of a commercial "Photo Lab."

You can probably find long threads comparing “straight” photography vs. “pictorial”.

I practice “straight” photography myself but appreciate both.

Strike a nerve and the passions will flare. Most recently we talked about cropping.

I don’t crop but tell everyone to crop. “Save yourself it’s too late for me.”

Once you break the chains of a full frame black border print, you open the door to creativity like combination printing.

ic-racer said:

Never ran across this in any critique, review or book in print. Any references? Recent social media trend?
In my opinion he is the definition of film photographer. This is what we do...create photographs in the darkroom. Maybe the purpose of the photographer's darkroom has been forgotten. It is not a place to make prints of snapshots; that is the function of a commercial "Photo Lab."

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I agree with you. I was talking about people who consider themselves "purists" - who believe the print should aim for what the camera "saw". You'd probably be unlikely to find any critic or author condemn someone's photography or photographic technique on those grounds but they would use those grounds as an excuse to exclude them (not include their work in a critical article or book).

Well, I must say I was not expecting as much feedback on this process as I received. Thanks to all!

A couple things of note that may help clarify questions/confusion about my methodology. I had three separate negatives loaded into three separate, identical enlargers, Omega LPL 4500II VCCE model. The photos were part of a time-lapse series I took of snow accumulating on the ground. The camera remained in the same place throughout the sequence (to the best of my ability with a tripod; I did have to take the camera in between exposures because the cold was affecting the mechanics of the Hasselblad 500C/M).

My intention was to show the snow accumulating in three sections of the print. I first took a plain sheet of Masa Rice paper, an inexpensive paper I've used for cyanotype printing before, cut to size, and loaded it into the first easels. With the enlarger heads located at the same height and focused well, I sketched "landmarks" of the scene onto the paper, namely the outline of the shepherd's hook and fence in the background. I then moved that paper between the other two identical easels and adjusted the position of the easels to make sure they were aligned with one another. Once everything is aligned, I make sure not to bump anything accidentally, and move one sheet of darkroom paper between each of the easels/enlargers, exposing only a region of each negative to the paper.

Please let me know if I'm not communicating the process well, but that's the gist of it.

I felt that moving paper between enlargers rather than moving negatives between an enlarger would lead to more precise registrations, as suggested by MattKing.

MattKing said:

It is easier to register a piece of paper than it is to register a negative - the paper is larger.
Multiple enlargers make sense, particularly if you are working with negatives of different formats when you are combining them into a single print.
Multiple enlargers are good as well if you are pre or post flashing.

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Disclaimer: most of the equipment I used in this process belongs to my University.

Uelsmann's approach was much more surrealistic, attempting to create dream-like scenes that are very distant from reality. I was attempting something more "realistic," if you will, using the white borders between sections to establish the separations between time, while maintaining the same location.

I welcome any and all feedback. Hopefully this helped to clarify my method so far.

This is a great thread you started. 90% of threads started by new members are the same old thing over and over....

With multiple negative work onto the same print, it's simpler to do it with multiple matched enlargers and easels rather than just one enlarger and several matched pin-register carriers (which tended to be more expensive apiece than entire basic enlargers). But either method will work. Uelsmann's prints were characterized by his seamlessness.