What is Ralph Gibson's Technique?

[chip j]

For obtaining his grainy, high-contrast images? I think it's done in film developing. Thanks

 

[RalphLambrecht]

For obtaining his grainy, high-contrast images? I think it's done in film developing. Thanks

not sure but, there are max-grain developers and some dev techniques also maximise grain(typically, people try to avoid that).

 

[Jerevan]

Tri-X exposed at EI 1600, developed in Rodinal if I remember correctly (he has written about it somewhere, in a book or article).

 

[Ian Grant]

Under exposure and increased development, Tri-X at 800 or 1600. as above. We also need to remember that many of his well known images were made using older generations of Tri-X and there have been significant improvements in the film since then it now gives much finer grain. So we need to think in terms of Tri-X that was equivalent to HP3 and later HP4 both of which I used and were significantly grainier than HP5 and the current HP5+.

It's also often forgotten that at one time TRi-X itself varied depending on which plant it was coated, Kodak professional film developer data-sheets gave slightly different times and recommended EI's for Tri-X coated in the US, Canada, and the UK when I first used it in the late 1960s..

Ian

 

[chip j]

FOMA 400 is pretty grainy @ box speed in D76. I could expose that @1600.

 

[doughowk]

"Darkroom" edited by Eleanor Lewis [Lustrum Press, 1977] has a chapter on Ralph Gibson.

 

[Lachlan Young]

To paraphrase from the Lustrum Darkroom book: Tri-X exposed in the 100 to 400 range, then processed in 1+25 Rodinal for 11 minutes at 20c, agitation at 90s intervals, making a negative that is then printed on the hardest grades of paper with a Focomat. Have tried this process myself & the negative that results is very distinctive in its quality & most of the assumptions in the above posts are wrong. The grain comes out beautifully, but you still get useful tonality that underexposure would eliminate totally.

 

[Michael W]

He said that he overexposed and overdeveloped for dense negatives.

 

[chip j]

Yes, I wondered how he got good tonality w/such high contrast. Thanks, Lachlan!

 

[Christiaan Phleger]

yeah in the book Darkroom there is a photo showing a 'normal' neg and one using his technique and that one almost seems unprintable it is so dense. He also mentions the use of a much stronger wattage bulb in his Focomat.
That is one of my small beefs with the whole negs to scans workflow that most seem to stop at in the film process; valid and useful densities for optical printing are not usable with scanning.

 

[Lachlan Young]

valid and useful densities for optical printing are not usable with scanning.

Only if you're using a consumer grade flatbed/ film scanner. High end CCD & PMT drum scanners are orders of magnitude better at handling higher densities, but much more costly & troublesome to run.

 

[removed account4]

hi chipj
not sure if you have access to or can get your hands on an inexpensive
4x5 camera it might be fun you can get falling plate cameras this format for not much $
( if you have $$ left over from your watch ) one of the things i LOVE to do is over expose and develop
out film so it is bulletproof. you contact print the film on regular old rc paper with
a very strong light bulb ( i use a 300w bulb ).. beautiful tonal grainy prints.. you can do
this with 35mm or smaller film but it is harder to make prints well ... its not harder to make them
but they tent to be small contact prints
i use caffenol developer to do this sort of processing with 15cc of whatever
undilute print developer you have lying around (i regularly use ansco130 or dektol for this )
with about its forgiving and slow and contrast in all the right places...
thankfully i don't know mr gibson's work or most of the other people folks swoon over doing
stuff like this otherwise i wouldn't be doing any of it ... id rather get lost off trail making my own footprints

have fun !
john

 

[Patrick Robert James]

You can just see all the Zonies heads exploding.... Overexpose AND overdevelop? Aaaaaaaaaaaa!

I am a fan of a super dense neg. I know others that are too. Even my 4x5 negs look ridiculous to a Zonie. Don't buy into Dogmas... Besides what is a perfect print anyway? I would say perfect is what you like.

I think Gibson used films other than Tri-X too. I seem to recall he used Neopan 1600 because it was closer to the older Tri-X. Don't quote me on that though.

But as others have stated above, he overexposed and overdeveloped then printed on really hard papers. I'd be curious to know how he would print now. Super hard graded papers are long gone. Maybe he stashed up...

He shoots digitally now though. Uses a Leica Monochrom and I'd assume whatever the latest Leica digital is.

By the way, if you are a fan of his they recently released the Black Trilogy which is Somnambulist, Deja-Vu and Days at Sea rolled into one. I think that was some of his best work. Beautiful photographs. The cover of the book is strange too. It is really black. Otherwise see if you can find Deus Ex Machina. It is a brick book with hundreds of images from his career up until the late 90s.

 

[chip j]

YES! I just got a Deus Ex Machina. A Great book for only a few bucks.

 

[Lachlan Young]

You can just see all the Zonies heads exploding.... Overexpose AND overdevelop? Aaaaaaaaaaaa!

I am a fan of a super dense neg. I know others that are too. Even my 4x5 negs look ridiculous to a Zonie. Don't buy into Dogmas... Besides what is a perfect print anyway? I would say perfect is what you like.

I think Gibson used films other than Tri-X too. I seem to recall he used Neopan 1600 because it was closer to the older Tri-X. Don't quote me on that though.

But as others have stated above, he overexposed and overdeveloped then printed on really hard papers. I'd be curious to know how he would print now. Super hard graded papers are long gone. Maybe he stashed up...

He shoots digitally now though. Uses a Leica Monochrom and I'd assume whatever the latest Leica digital is.

By the way, if you are a fan of his they recently released the Black Trilogy which is Somnambulist, Deja-Vu and Days at Sea rolled into one. I think that was some of his best work. Beautiful photographs. The cover of the book is strange too. It is really black. Otherwise see if you can find Deus Ex Machina. It is a brick book with hundreds of images from his career up until the late 90s.

Multigrade & filters - there was a interview from a few years ago (early 2000's?) where he was complaining that there was only really Ilford & Ilford in terms of paper choices for his printing. Brovira 6 (G5 to everyone else) was what he used to use.

 

[Ian Grant]

To paraphrase from the Lustrum Darkroom book: Tri-X exposed in the 100 to 400 range, then processed in 1+25 Rodinal for 11 minutes at 20c, agitation at 90s intervals, making a negative that is then printed on the hardest grades of paper with a Focomat. Have tried this process myself & the negative that results is very distinctive in its quality & most of the assumptions in the above posts are wrong. The grain comes out beautifully, but you still get useful tonality that underexposure would eliminate totally.

My understanding is he used more than one technique over the years.

The technique given in the Lustrum Darkroom book is not unique, that's how many photographers worked before WWII, after all Tri-X had a 200 ASA speed rating until the ASA/BS standard removed the safety factor for all B&W films in the early 1960's. Films were processed to a higher contrast as this helped overcome the lower contrast of many uncoated lenses. The papers available at the time matched the heavier more contrasty negatives.

Multigrade & filters - there was a interview from a few years ago (early 2000's?) where he was complaining that there was only really Ilford & Ilford in terms of paper choices for his printing. Brovira 6 (G5 to everyone else) was what he used to use.

One only has to look at contemporary pre-WWII Kertesz prints and they have a quality that isn't there on modern prints from the same negatives. So it's not surprising that Gibson complained about paper choice.

Ian

 

[ic-racer]

Don't forget to use f16. It does make a noticeable difference; f16 limits the absolute image resolution on the film, so the sharpest things in the final print are the grain particles, this helps make the grain particles prominent.

 

[Lachlan Young]

My understanding is he used more than one technique over the years.

The technique given in the Lustrum Darkroom book is not unique, that's how many photographers worked before WWII, after all Tri-X had a 200 ASA speed rating until the ASA/BS standard removed the safety factor for all B&W films in the early 1960's. Films were processed to a higher contrast as this helped overcome the lower contrast of many uncoated lenses. The papers available at the time matched the heavier more contrasty negatives.



One only has to look at contemporary pre-WWII Kertesz prints and they have a quality that isn't there on modern prints from the same negatives. So it's not surprising that Gibson complained about paper choice.

Ian

I'd not generally disagree - in some aspects Gibson is following the practices you describe, but taken to more extreme & aestheticised ends.

The answer to the pre-ww2 materials may well lie somewhere in a complex mix of relatively more imperfect paper curves, thicker K-grain emulsions & much less sophisticated dye/ sensitising technology. For lack of a better way of putting it, to my eye they look less 'sharp', but somewhat tonally 'smoother' with less punchy whites (no major use of optical brighteners before 1950ish?) & perhaps a slightly softer toe for a given grade?

 

[Pat Erson]

First-hand anecdote :

around 2000 RG told one of my friends he had entirely given up on TRI-X and moved to TMAX 3200.This film sitll had the grain Gibson liked.

 

[Lachlan Young]

First-hand anecdote :

around 2000 RG told one of my friends he had entirely given up on TRI-X and moved to TMAX 3200.This film sitll had the grain Gibson liked.

Not hugely surprising - if you land a TMZ negative on G4-5, the grain is beautifully crisp & sharp, especially in a big print.

 

[Fujicaman1957]

Okay, I have a copy of the March 1977 issue of Popular Photography that details Ralph Gibson's methods. First, he was over-exposing the film. In part of the article he refers to giving Tri-X his usual f16 @ 1/60th exposure in bright sunlight. " Because I almost always shoot in bright sun on Tri-X with the camera set at f16" Okay, that's a 3 stop over-exposure. Then he developed the film in Rodinal 1:25 for 11 minutes @ 68f with 10 seconds of agitation every 90 seconds for 10 seconds. His printing paper of choice was Agfa Brovira #4 or #5 grade...and Brovira back then was contrastier than almost any other B&W paper of the time. Brovira #5 was closer to a #6 grade in my memory.

Basically, he over-exposed and overdeveloped the hell out of his Tri-X to get a dense, contrasty neg that he then printed on very contrasty paper.

 

[chip j]

Thanks So Much!

 

[Lachlan Young]

Okay, I have a copy of the March 1977 issue of Popular Photography that details Ralph Gibson's methods. First, he was over-exposing the film. In part of the article he refers to giving Tri-X his usual f16 @ 1/60th exposure in bright sunlight. " Because I almost always shoot in bright sun on Tri-X with the camera set at f16" Okay, that's a 3 stop over-exposure. Then he developed the film in Rodinal 1:25 for 11 minutes @ 68f with 10 seconds of agitation every 90 seconds for 10 seconds. His printing paper of choice was Agfa Brovira #4 or #5 grade...and Brovira back then was contrastier than almost any other B&W paper of the time. Brovira #5 was closer to a #6 grade in my memory.

Basically, he over-exposed and overdeveloped the hell out of his Tri-X to get a dense, contrasty neg that he then printed on very contrasty paper.

This is pretty much exactly the same as the Lustrum Press Darkroom chapter - & the hardest grade of Brovira was (according to available datasheets) somewhat harder than Kodabromide, but pretty much all of today's Ilford & Adox MG papers (and Fomabrom Variant III) claim to hit the same ISO R of 50 when exposed to a G5 filter.

 

[Fujicaman1957]

This is pretty much exactly the same as the Lustrum Press Darkroom chapter - & the hardest grade of Brovira was (according to available datasheets) somewhat harder than Kodabromide, but pretty much all of today's Ilford & Adox MG papers (and Fomabrom Variant III) claim to hit the same ISO R of 50 when exposed to a G5 filter.

I just noticed a note in the article that says it was "One of the 13 chapters-taken from the book Darkroom published by Lustrum press".

 

[Alan Johnson]

I have that book, published in 1977, [ He was only 38 then] On p69 his method is tabulated.
Tri-X at EI 100-400 11 minutes in Rodinal 1:25 agitated 10 seconds every 1 1/2 minutes. [90seconds].
In the text it does say he almost always shoots in bright sun on Tri-X at f16 but says (p66) " my usual Tri-X, bright sun combination of f16 at 1/250".
Note it definitely says 1/250 not the 1/60 quoted above.
He says he has tried thinner negatives,finer grain, longer development but the only negative he considers interesting in terms of its potential is the overexposed overdeveloped one.