Digital BW, The Print

Dear Jerry,
In response, the first thing I can think of saying is that not every piece of music needs to be played by an
entire orchestra...A string quartet or even a single flute can make beautiful music....And that music *cannot*
be duplicated by the big, full, orchestra.  I would say the same thing is true of photographic prints, whether
they be landscape, nude, portrait, still life, etc.

You use Ansel Adams as an example that absolutely proves your theory, but I don't think you are familiar with
*all* of Ansel's work.  There are images in his oeuvre that don't display that full tonal range (and not just
'high key' ones) which are still beautiful.  Further, the prints that he did mid-career are considered better
(by the market forces and art historians) than his later work that was *much* more luminously rendered, how
can that be?.

I think, if Ansel was alive today, he would be the first to say that he was known for *not* setting
limits.....Are you familiar with the time he sent Imogen Cunningham a photo printed on a coffee can (and she
sent it back to him with a pot plant planted in it)?  The point being that there are several ways to approach
photography, and we shouldn't be boxed in by just one possible interpretation.

Your insistence of requiring a full tonal range in every image (except high key, of course) reminds me of the
time I was on a selection committee of a gallery, and one of my fellow judges declared that all window mats
had to be rectilinear, and that an entrant (which was a beautiful collage of several 'sectioned' photos) had
to be disqualified because the photographer had gone through the trouble of making the window in his mat
'conform' to all the print edges!  Sheer nonsense.  Who made up that rule?  Not Ansel Adams!

In nature, not every scene has a full range of tones...Is conveying those scenes off limits to photography?

While I agree, it is very important to be *able* to produce a full tonal range on a photo print, it just isn't
*always* necessary.  When I had my apprentices in my old studio in upstate NY, I had my 'kids' print for a
black, and then a white in every print that I assigned them.  But after they 'got it', it was time to let them
be free....The full tonal range assignments were an *excercise*, not an end unto itself.

If you carried your theories through to other art mediums, you would exclude most modern art....Does that make
sense?

For the record:  I am considered a master b&w printer myself, and have (among other things) had my work in
several respected gallery shows (worldwide), been published in several hardcover 'Art' books, and have
lectured about my work at the International Center for Photography, here in NYC.

Harvey Ferdschneider
partner, SKID Photography, NYC

PS:  With all the references to 'flat' or 'grey' platinum prints, I would suggest that you look at the
platinum work of Irving Penn (very contrasty, with *intense* blacks, or the nudes of Rod Cook (I just went to
his website...and I don't know as the full tonal range is captured on the website, but in person, they have it
all!
http://www.rodcook.com/

Jerry Olson wrote:

> Harvey,
>
> Try to imagine one of Ansel Adams prints without a proper black. Think
> it would be impressive? If he just had charcoal grays where blacks
> should have been, I doubt if he would have been considered a good
> printer. Most (but not all) landscapes need that deep black to make a
> satisfying print.  And please keep in mind I did not say ALL prints
> should have a deep black.
>
> At school, we were always taught that a proper print, except high key
> prints, should have a paper white, a full range of grays, and a black,
> somewhere in the print that was as deep as the paper could produce.
>
> In fact if a print did not have these qualities, it was an automatic
> reprint. I had Boris Dobro as a teacher, and he was a master printer.
> World Class.
>
> Jerry
>
>
>
> SKID Photography wrote:
> >
> > I think it's unfortunate that you seem to have such a limited view of what can comprise a 'beautiful'
> image.
> > To be hemmed in by perfect black and pure white seems so limiting, when there are ranges of emotions to
> evoke.
> >nfo/terms/
>
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