Digital BW, The Print

Hi Steve,

first, remember that Ansel Adams and Edward Weston were contemporaries.
Each chose his own mode of photographic practice and had some enjoyment
of gigging each other about it.

Cole Weston in his essay about Edward titled Edward Weston: Dedicated to
simplicity states that:

"His darkroom and equipment were basic. Darkroom 7' x 10', wooden sink
3' x 6', the printing shelf had one paper drawer in it with an
adjustable 100 to 300 watt bulb hanging over an 11 x 14 inch printing
frame. The sink had four trays of various sizes with a red bulb under
the developer, a safe light over it, and a daylight bulb for the prints.
One loud ticking alarm clock counted his seconds for printing and a
3-minute egg timer timed the developing. Finally, washing was done in a
large tray with a syphon circulator. Negatives were developed in pyro,
and printing was done in amidol.

The camera equipment was just as simple and lacking in gadgets as his
darkroom. An 8 x 10 Ansco Commercial View for his personal creative
work, and a x x 5 Autographlex for his portraiture. Twenty 8 x 10
holders for the 8 x 10 camera, two 18 septum magazines for the Graphlex.
Filters, K1, K2 and G which her rarely used and that was about it. As
far as film and paper were concerned, from the time Isopan came out
until he had to stop working this was his film. Printing was done on
several different papers, but Haloid was his favorite during the 1940's"

Ansel Adams in his essay titled "Edward Weston" said:

"He reduced his mechanics to a minimum. One might say that, thereby, he
also limited the scope of his work: 8 x 10 for landscapes, 4 x 5 for
portraits, no enlarger, no retouching (in the usual sense), no darkroom
manipulations, pyro for negatives, amidol for prints, no toning, no
artificial lighting, no exotic techniques, etc."

Weston was a bright inventive person and knew personally most of the
greats of his career span and he did what he did through choice not lack
of knowledge or lack of availability of "advanced" equipment.



Roger

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Roger L Sopher
rlsopher@...
http://deCorrales.com
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