Digital BW, The Print

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Paul Roark"
<paul.roark@v...> wrote:
...
> I'm a real fan of shooting into the sun, so I especially relate to the
> Kalalock shot.  Were you able to capture this on a single film, or
did you
> have to use a couple of shots (as I did for my Grand Teton -- MF
Tech Pan --
> shot)?

First of all, thank you and every one else for your comments about the
imagery and work in general, it's been very gratifying.

I'm sorry this will get too long, film techniques and film vrs digital
discussions can get off track here real quick.
That was a 5x7 3x neg, at least a minus 4 or 5 development. The
developer used a highly compensation staining agent called
pyrocatechin. The partially revealed disk of the sun is defined on
film, as well as full shadow detail.
My girlfriend shot some color neg snapshots that evening, the range is
so great the sky is completely blown and foreground shadows completely
black in the dime store prints. Hard hard back light.
Multiple exposures could have encompassed that range I'm sure, but the
surf would not have been much fun to work with when compositing and
definitely not the "actual" scene.
To me this is an example of how far digital capture has to go yet.
It's not even close to being able to make this image, not even close.
Even if it could somehow capture the range in some pleasing manner,
and capture the water at moment the shooter thinks it is arranged
"just so", it would be quite lacking in tactile detail compared to a
large format neg.
I shoot some digital, I clearly embrace digital printing, but until we
can really do everything we need to do, we can't let some of these
tools completely slip away.
This is an old image, but has appeal, so I have had to discuss it too
many times over the years. I wouldn't mind if it moved aside for
recent work. But it's interesting in this way-

Photography tools evolved for decades and decades to the point where
we could capture pretty much anything we wanted, and this makes the
art of photography more and more compelling. If it's there, and sparks
some idea in a brain, a skilled imager can make it happen for us to
consider.
Do we really want to so rapidly abandon these hard won tools, so the
manufacturers like Agfa drop as fast as we are witnessing, and thereby
suddenly limit the actual pictures we can make? I don't want to go
backwards, I want to be able to make any image I want. And what really
pisses me off, is that those choices have been taken out of my hands.
This evolution is happening in spite of us users, not for us, argh!!!!

I could not have made this image with the technology touted today.
Tyler