Wedding photography in 1960's...fast prints

Fast prints....

My mother was telling me the other day that when she used to attend weddings in the 60's the photographer would turn up shooting from before the ceremony, at the reception etc.

Apparrently by the end of the reception proofs of all the prints would be displayed on a board so guests could view and buy copies.

Now I thought this sounded pretty fast and I was wondering how they did this - did they have a mobile darkroom and an assistant? mabey they were shooting large format and then contact printing the negs? but then I guess all the paper was FB too? Although I am thinking this was the 60's and 120 film was probably more likely for this sort of work?

Sounds impressive, and as I am looking at trying to speed up my printing for aceptable work prints, I was very interested in this. I am currently thinking about one of the RH designs meters for this purpose.

Any ideas?

Matt

It was certainly normal for the proof prints to be available at the reception, otherwise print sales would have been low. Our photographer returned with proofs about 2 hours after we left the church. This in 1966. The film stock was 120, and I think the proofs were on 10 x 8 R/C, in fact I'm sure they were.

My parents were married in the forties. Their wedding took place at 0700 hrs. This was followed by a wedding breakfast and the whole shebang was finished before lunch time.

They were catching a train in the evening for their honeymoon and the photographer had 6x9 contact sheets of the four rolls of film used that they took away with them.

So obviously even then with fibre based paper, photographers were battling a time limit.

I have one of those proof sheets and my other siblings have most of the others. What I find quite incredible is that these proof sheets wouldn't have been subjected to archival methods, they were just rushed through.

Yet they have survived a long time being kept in the worst type of situations.

I think one of the keys for fast darkroom work, is consistency in the way you expose and develop your film. I myself have printed for many years using f stops for printing, this speeded up my printing quite considerably, as well as saving on materials.

I have checked out the RH designs equipment and I think I will gain more speed and even less waste than now, by purchasing one. All I have to do is work out how to afford one. I will get one, before the year is out though.

Be warned though, purchasing their equipment doesn't mean that you will be faster and/or better, unless you incorporate a good basic printing strategy.

I'm not saying that the equipment is dodgy, just talking from personal experience from my early days in colour printing.

It was accepted by me and my friends that purchasing a colour analyser would fix all of our printing problems, it didn't and it will not unless you accept that you have to know how to use the equipment as it's designed.

If you do a search on the forum you will find some excellent advice from people who have asked the same question and gotten some great information, which in fact was the reason I decided to by one of their enlarger timers.

Mick.

Before the mid sixties the fast proofs were a standard process, with more than one individule involved in the developing and printing. After the mid sixties I was using a Kodak Stabilization Procesor for wedding proofs and photos that were going to be halftoned for newspaper or other printed medium. Using this technique I could photograph a product and have it delivered finished in about an hour. The prints were said to have a short lifespan, but I have hundereds of stabilized pints on file that look perfect today some look a bit browntoned, but all are usuable today. I expected them to last maybe a month then fade like POP proofs. At that time I would have never dreamed of selling a proof, but that seems quite the normal thing today.

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