Wynn Bullock and Zone System, as told by Edna Bullock

[Alan Edward Klein]

It would be helpful to me as an amateur if more people showed their pictures so I and others can see what they're talking about when they provide aesthetic or technical suggestions and ideas. It seems like 90%+ of the posters here don't have a gallery here or provide a link to another site. Unless I:m missing something when I look at their profile page, I can't find the pictures.

 

[tballphoto]

It would be helpful to me as an amateur if more people showed their pictures so I and others can see what they're talking about when they provide aesthetic or technical suggestions and ideas. It seems like 90%+ of the posters here don't have a gallery here or provide a link to another site. Unless I:m missing something when I look at their profile page, I can't find the pictures.

examples are great, however there are many people who have the book learning, but not the field experience.

Meaning they can recite page after page from the "survival manual for those lost in the forest", but have never done it, never been IN the forest, and if dropped off in the forest in july, with a tent, a propane stove, beef jerky, canned food to last 5 people a week on monday morning, would be found tuseday morning either starved to death or frozen to death.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

examples are great, however there are many people who have the book learning, but not the field experience.

Meaning they can recite page after page from the "survival manual for those lost in the forest", but have never done it, never been IN the forest, and if dropped off in the forest in july, with a tent, a propane stove, beef jerky, canned food to last 5 people a week on monday morning, would be found tuseday morning either starved to death or frozen to death.

I'm afraid we have a lot of those people here in the forums. Of course, not having practical experience, they're just repeating what they read, what someone else's opinion is. And that opinion could be rubbish. How would they know? "Show me the money!" Even those who do have a lot of experience reduce their arguments. How do I know they know what they're talking about if they can;t show me the proof? Why should I believe them? How do I separate experience from wishful thinking without seeing samples? When you buy a camera, isn't it better to handle it first? I just discard a lot of opinions I read here.

Also, someone might recommend a procedure that could work out best for me. But I want to see the results before I spend time trying it. Maybe the results aren't really what I'm looking for. I'm not going to waste time trying some new procedure, where I can't determine beforehand if the results are something I want. Example: Someone argues that developer type ABC is the best for sharpness. So who's going to go out and buy and try that without seeing samples stopping their old way of doing things? There are dozens of opinions along this line every day. Samples are a way to separate the wheat from the chaff.

 

[tballphoto]

I'm afraid we have a lot of those people here in the forums. Of course, not having practical experience, they're just repeating what they read, what someone else's opinion is. And that opinion could be rubbish. How would they know? "Show me the money!" Even those who do have a lot of experience reduce their arguments. How do I know they know what they're talking about if they can;t show me the proof? Why should I believe them? How do I separate experience from wishful thinking without seeing samples? When you buy a camera, isn't it better to handle it first? I just discard a lot of opinions I read here.

Also, someone might recommend a procedure that could work out best for me. But I want to see the results before I spend time trying it. Maybe the results aren't really what I'm looking for. I'm not going to waste time trying some new procedure, where I can't determine beforehand if the results are something I want. Example: Someone argues that developer type ABC is the best for sharpness. So who's going to go out and buy and try that without seeing samples stopping their old way of doing things? There are dozens of opinions along this line every day. Samples are a way to separate the wheat from the chaff.

The person who banned me from one of those sites for asking questions, was a moderator who claimed to actually be a professional photographer and owner of a public printing room studio killed my account when he couldnt actual explain his answer to what i asked, it was the classic "use the zone system and youll be fine" and when i asked for an explanation on it, he just launched into gamma ranges of film, and when i asked for an answer i couldnt log in

 

[Raghu Kuvempunagar]

Yeah... Just identify middle gray, and then wonder why you have so much trouble getting decent shadow or highlight gradation in contrasty scenes. That's exactly why the Zone System needed to be invented. Not all of us are satisfied with a "good enough for government work" mentality.

Just curious. Have you used matrix metering (e.g. Nikon F4/F5/F6/F80/F100) for such scenes and done a comparison with your more thoughtful evaluative method? Or if you know of any such study by other respected photographers, I would be much obliged if you can point me to it.

 

[Deleted member 88956]

Yeah... Just identify middle gray, and then wonder why you have so much trouble getting decent shadow or highlight gradation in contrasty scenes. That's exactly why the Zone System needed to be invented. Not all of us are satisfied with a "good enough for government work" mentality. No, I don't personally adhere to Zone System methodology; but knowing exactly where I want my dynamic range to fall in terms of shadow exposure specifically, and in relation to highlight reproduction specifically, is far more important than identifying middle gray in black and white work. That's what spotmeters are so nice for. ... and what digital cameras are so miserable at. Who wants imitation ice milk when you can have real ice cream?

And in this case, we're speaking about Wynn Bullock, who really skated on the edge in terms of tightly nuanced contrast print extremes using Azo paper. That would be an almost impossible task to do the imitation ice milk way - it would look imitation!

Color film technique is somewhat different because you're not dealing with just a gray scale, but with hue specific hues saturate based on given exposure.

You know what I have

You have referenced to my post without stating so. Afraid?

I will say this now, as I've put up with some of your many posts and tried to be respectful (by not commenting). But the level of how full of yourself you are is beyond ridiculous. I could (and couldn't) care less, if you like (or not) Adams, or any of those great names in the photographic world, or just have some first hand knowledge regarding some of them, or you yourself are one of the greatest photographers ever (and as far I could find out, I don't think so).

The way you often, all too often, come across makes your posts worthless in all other senses. Why bother reading them, if its a near guarantee they will most likely contain your puffed up greatness loaded (and bloated) with technical crap, some an utter nonsense, that has absolutely no value in achieving an excellent print. It would help you a LOT to tone down your baloney, lower yourself to a manageable responder, and see what people are actually either saying, or asking for.

AND yes, SHOW your examples (but that would really hurt your ego, would it not?). In addition, DO state what you say is just "IMO", because your posts are needing it more than most others'.

Photography is not factual. Never has been, nor will it ever be.

Now, regarding my post you "quoted". I specifically responded to poster who is learning photography. A LOT of scenes fall within most films' dynamic range. Taking care of middle tones WILL indeed bring up a negative that is fine to print a more than satisfactory photograph. Often enough and with some darkroom skill, it can be a very fine photograph, including your beloved "shadow details". Sure you can beat your meter to death and see if those scenes did indeed have another needle in the haystack, but that is you and NOT an advice of level you purport it to be.

Then I say YES, looking for what's where and how shadows (and highlights, mind you) fall into place and whether additional adjustments are needed has its place. But NOT at learning level where composition is even more ahead of actual detail rendition (and always is).

 

[Ivo Stunga]

Testing is a beast some of us chose to slay repeatedly and must not tire doing so.

Sad1:
I cannot do without it as each unique film I've shot requires guesswork (or densitometry, a possibility in the future) just to arrive at a value that's printed for you in many film boxes - development times for unlisted developer.

Sad2:
BW slides are made by developing your standard (or the very few specialty) BW film once in a strong developer, then bleaching, then removal of bleach byproducts, then reversal stage (physically to light or chemically), then second development and only then fixing. Many more additional steps that can and do introduce variables in the final picture, each to be tested occasionally - both saturation and how each film responded, what needs to be tweaked.


I do this {Moderator DELETED vulgarity} to have slides to project as it's the way I'm enjoying my film - projected big and squeezing the very last quality out of a 35mm frame.

- I'm bad with maths as a result of childhood activities, but somehow
- I was a software tester for a year. Hated it with a passion, though.
- Yet I don't mind coming up with a testing scenario for my film to test {Moderator DELETED vulgarity} it, as there's no other way in the world of BW Reversal.
- Still, I don't have knowledge/skills to do testing properly and lack some basic darkroom education/understanding - fellow autodidacts will understand. But I do tests, and my testing is done when I arrive at a result I like.
- And that involves learning Zone system. I learned some and it has improved my exposures drastically. Has it ruined my expression, making pictures boring? You're welcome to be my judge, link to my pics in the signature field.

TLDR: sometimes we cannot avoid testing. Testing usually increases understanding and knowledge is power.

 

[juan]

The Zone System is a method of understanding your materials and training your mind and eye to work with them. There are other ways that some folks use just as well. Clyde Butcher told me he uses a spotmeter, picks out the area he wants as middle gray, and determines his exposure. Minor White in his New Zone System Manual suggests doing the same, then controlling shadow values with developer time and temperature and high values with agitation.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

The Zone System is a method of understanding your materials and training your mind and eye to work with them. There are other ways that some folks use just as well. Clyde Butcher told me he uses a spotmeter, picks out the area he wants as middle gray, and determines his exposure. Minor White in his New Zone System Manual suggests doing the same, then controlling shadow values with developer time and temperature and high values with agitation.

How does Butcher get those black skies all the time?

 

[Sirius Glass]

How does Butcher get those black skies all the time?

Red25 or Red23 filters

 

[Vaughn]

...
I cannot understand most of the data shown on film data sheets, about curves, gamma, etc. I dont get the zone system at all because if it was as infallible as Adams claimed it was, why was he having to dodge and burn the print as much as he did?
..."

When you learn about dodging and burning, you will understand that using the Zone Systems to get the best negative to work with, and the act of burning and dodging the print are two very different activities. Your statement is like asking why should I follow a chefs receipe to bake a cake when the same chef has to do all that extra work to decorate the cake after it is baked.

 

[juan]

Clyde told me, and showed me, that he uses orange filters. He also shoots wide for format lenses so take he can get the higher up portions of the shy. At least in Florida, the sky close to the ground is filled with humidity and photographs light grey regardless of filter. Higher up. The air is clearer and much more blue, so the orange filter darkens the sky.

 

[bluechromis]

When a print is primarily judged as being successful because of tonality alone you can bet your bottom dollar it's being reviewed by another photographer with minimal understanding of art appreciation.

I can't count how many crappy images I have been handed by photographers who believe it's MOMA material. When I ask them what makes this print good they generally point to some highlight they were able to retain or some boring detail in the shadows they captured. Their concern for what's going on in the rest print seems to have escaped their attention.

To make a truly expressive print is complex and hard work. Unfortunately many photographers spend a lot of time mastering the zone system and then stop there.

To much time is spent on technical matters and other arcane things on Photrio and not enough time discussing what makes an image "work" as a piece of art.

Maybe Photrio is the techie/nerd forum and there is a better forum for those who want to further their journey in the world of expressive, impactful imagery.

Just mho.

I agree that it would be nice to have more attention to aesthetic considerations.

 

[MattKing]

I agree that it would be nice to have more attention to aesthetic considerations.

Print qualities are themselves aesthetic considerations.
They are part of the visualization calculus.

 

[bluechromis]

Setting aside the Zone System practices specifically, I think there could be a benefit of some testing to learn about exposure, developing variables. I often see a question from a novice on a forum about how to best expose and develop a particular film. They may take one of the suggestions as gospel and go on shooting that way forever. But they never really learned about the effects of changing the variables. They never learned why one would use a particular protocol. I think is worthwhile at least once in one's life to shoot the same scene and then change the exposure and development parameters out the extremes. Sometimes it is when an effect is exaggerated that one grasps what is the effect when more subtle. They may also find that modest changes in parameters don't make as much of a difference as they would have thought, especially with negative film.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Clyde told me, and showed me, that he uses orange filters. He also shoots wide for format lenses so take he can get the higher up portions of the shy. At least in Florida, the sky close to the ground is filled with humidity and photographs light grey regardless of filter. Higher up. The air is clearer and much more blue, so the orange filter darkens the sky.

He must be doing more than just using orange filters. I don't get those kinds of dark skies with just the filter. He must be burning and dodging a lot.

 

[Lachlan Young]

When a print is primarily judged as being successful because of tonality alone you can bet your bottom dollar it's being reviewed by another photographer with minimal understanding of art appreciation.

I can't count how many crappy images I have been handed by photographers who believe it's MOMA material. When I ask them what makes this print good they generally point to some highlight they were able to retain or some boring detail in the shadows they captured. Their concern for what's going on in the rest print seems to have escaped their attention.

To make a truly expressive print is complex and hard work. Unfortunately many photographers spend a lot of time mastering the zone system and then stop there.

To much time is spent on technical matters and other arcane things on Photrio and not enough time discussing what makes an image "work" as a piece of art.

Maybe Photrio is the techie/nerd forum and there is a better forum for those who want to further their journey in the world of expressive, impactful imagery.

Just mho.

The Zone System is, at best, bastardised sensitometry - and actual sensitometery doesn't purport to be an arbiter of aesthetic truth, merely a useful scientisation of photographic materials' observable behaviour. Used in pursuit of a variety of aesthetic goals, applied sensitometry is incredibly useful & straightforward, unlike the garbled verbiage of the bizarre midtone obsessions observable in this thread (I'd like to see them try to index a midtone on an SEI spot meter of the sort seen in one of the more famous bits of Ansel Adams footage).

The Zone System (and similar) further appeals as a form of pseudo-governance to a certain mentalité because it seems to produce a numericised (but facile in reality) value system which, in the manner of 'Top Trumps' or similar games lets people delude themselves into believing that ticking all the Zone-System-Bingo boxes will make whatever image their overwrought camera-handling produced somehow have some sort of measurable value as art. Which is, as you point out, nonsense. Art criticism would require giving more considered and thought through opinions and risking having to give complicated answers which do not comply with a 'right/ wrong' binary - and it can't be numericised in facile ways (though there have been some amazingly stupid attempts at this).

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

The Zone System is, at best, bastardised sensitometry - and actual sensitometery doesn't purport to be an arbiter of aesthetic truth, merely a useful scientisation of photographic materials' observable behaviour. Used in pursuit of a variety of aesthetic goals, applied sensitometry is incredibly useful & straightforward, unlike the garbled verbiage of the bizarre midtone obsessions observable in this thread (I'd like to see them try to index a midtone on an SEI spot meter of the sort seen in one of the more famous bits of Ansel Adams footage).

The Zone System (and similar) further appeals as a form of pseudo-governance to a certain mentalité because it seems to produce a numericised (but facile in reality) value system which, in the manner of 'Top Trumps' or similar games lets people delude themselves into believing that ticking all the Zone-System-Bingo boxes will make whatever image their overwrought camera-handling produced somehow have some sort of measurable value as art. Which is, as you point out, nonsense. Art criticism would require giving more considered and thought through opinions and risking having to give complicated answers which do not comply with a 'right/ wrong' binary - and it can't be numericised in facile ways (though there have been some amazingly stupid attempts at this).

Or as they say, you can't make a silk purse from a sow's ear.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Take what you and use from the Zone System and leave the rest. Need expansion and compression? No, not needed with modern films, so move on. Getting more details in shadow areas selectively? Use a spot meter and put the shadow detail you want in the Zone you wish and the rest falls into place. No endless testing. Enjoy life.

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

The Zone System made it relatively easy to learn photography from books, for people who didn’t have access to a good teacher in the darkroom who could show them what made a good negative and how to recognize one when developing by inspection, and who didn’t live in a city with galleries and museums where they could see great prints. Now we’re more mobile and have more access to travel, so there are more possibilities. There still is no substitute for seeing great prints in person.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Gosh, you can't create a symphony with any single instrument, whether a particular contrast filter or meter, or a particular exposure method, or even a thousand different instruments combined. At some level it's all meaningless if you don't have an ear for it. Likewise with photographic composition. All the tools and techniques in the world won't help if you don't have an eye for it.

Otherwise, ditto to what Lachlan and Sirius just posted. The Zone System is just another potential tool.

 

[DREW WILEY]

I just noticed Raghu's question, so apologize for the delay in responding. No, I do no use any kind of onboard TTL camera metering. I've done experimental comparisons enough times to realize that I want to think for myself and not presume a camera program can do it better, because it can't. I use handheld Pentax digital spotmeters for all my camera needs, all the way from 35 mm to 8X10 formats. And I'll never buy a self-driving car either, if they ever catch on. I want complete control of the outcome.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

I just noticed Raghu's question, so apologize for the delay in responding. No, I do no use any kind of onboard TTL camera metering. I've done experimental comparisons enough times to realize that I want to think for myself and not presume a camera program can do it better, because it can't. I use handheld Pentax digital spotmeters for all my camera needs, all the way from 35 mm to 8X10 formats. And I'll never buy a self-driving car either, if they ever catch on. I want complete control of the outcome.

Digital cameras provide spot metering either in Aperture or Shutter priority or manual or automatic modes. I don't know which mode your Pentax meter uses. But you could set a digital camera with the same priority mode.

What's the difference between a Pentax digital camera and a Pentax spot meter?

 

[Vaughn]

Alan,
I doubt Drew would use a hammer when he needs a screwdriver.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Alan,
I doubt Drew would use a hammer when he needs a screwdriver.

I'm not asking him to use a hammer. I'm just pointing out that the technology between a dedicated meter and a digital camera's exposure programs are pretty much the same as far as I can tell. If someone has a digital camera already, they wouldn't have to buy a meter, necessarily to get spot metering. I do that as well as use it as a viewfinder to compose my shot and to view it in BW. For many not as experienced as Drew, like me, that can be very helpful.