Bruce Barnbaum - The Art of Photography - An Approach to Personal Expression

First, let’s recognize that before you get into the darkroom or onto the computer, the camera itself can be used to alter scenes greatly. Your choice of lens, camera position, filter(s), aperture, and shutter speed all have an effect on the scene. As discussed in Chapter 5, the lighting of a portrait can mold the character of the person photographed, and the photographer may be in total control of this variable in a studio setting (Figure 14-1). A waterfall photographed at of a second has a very different feel from the same waterfall photographed at one second, even if everything else is the same. Using black-and-white film in a world filled with color is, in itself, a dramatic alteration of reality. Likewise, your choice of color film and the type of print you make can drastically alter the “realistic” colors of a scene. Yet each of these distortions seems to be accepted readily.

One of the world’s truly great photographers, Morten struck me as a marvelous portrait subject with his strong Viking facial characteristics. But what would be the best angle to photograph him, and what type of lighting would convey that feeling most effectively? I finally decided it was the strength of his near profile. That evening, under the dim light of a chandelier, he propped his chin on his hands with his elbows on a low table for the 25-second exposure. Deep background tones surrounding him increase the feeling of strength .

Figure 14-1. Morten Krogvold

How far can alterations go in the darkroom or on the computer before they become an ethical or moral question, or stir the ire of the viewer? It’s widely known that Ansel Adams’s famous “Moonrise Over Hernandez” is heavily manipulated. Not only is the print heavily manipulated, but also the negative. Nearly 10 years after making the negative, Ansel intensified the lower portion with chromium intensifier, making it significantly denser and a bit more contrasty. Beyond that, the upper portion of the print is heavily burned, making the sky a dramatic black against the light and mid-tones of the foreground. A straight print from the original, unmanipulated negative would show a sky approximately two zones brighter than the foreground. Yet despite the fact that the negative and the print were heavily manipulated, “Moonrise Over Hernandez” is accepted as pure realism. It’s one of the most widely known and loved of all photographs.

I am not engaged in the photography of politically charged propaganda and deception, but in a lifetime of producing artistic creations, I have always felt that anything I do photographically is artistically legitimate because my photographs are my own artistic creations. Ansel apparently felt the same way when he intensified his negative of “Moonrise” and when he printed it with a black sky. He felt no restrictions in doing whatever he wanted to do with that negative and print. I support that approach. I rarely create the scenes that I photograph, but I always create the photographs .

My intent is to create a work of art. My expectation is that readers of this book have a similar intent. My product is not intended to document the scene but rather to interpret the scene. It is my editorial comment of the scene, so it contains a bit of me in it. As long as I attempt to produce works of art, I have artistic license to do whatever I want to produce my art. With any of my photographs, I print in the manner that I feel produces my most convincing statement—my strongest vision—of that scene. If that involves extensive manipulation, so be it.

Let’s consider the mushroom example discussed in Figure 10-6. The mushrooms and the rocks were virtually the same tonality, and I wanted the mushrooms to stand out, which I accomplished via substantial burning along the rocks and the edges of the mushrooms. My final product is a photograph of mushrooms, not a cluster of mushrooms. After all, the mushrooms existed in Yosemite Valley long ago. My intent in both the field and darkroom is to create a work of art; in this case, I used the mushrooms as a starting point. I chose to print it in the manner shown because I felt it was my most convincing statement—my strongest vision—of that cluster of fungi. At the site of the mushrooms my eye was drawn to them very strongly, and I wanted to direct the viewer to them, too. I achieved that goal through extensive darkroom manipulation, largely burning and dodging. I contend that there’s nothing wrong with that. I suspect almost everyone would agree.

You might ask, “If the zone system is such a marvelous method of exposure, why is so much darkroom manipulation necessary?” The mushroom example provides the answer. There was nothing I could have done in the field to alter the relative brightness of the rocks and mushrooms. They both metered the same; there was no tonal difference between them. The granite rocks were light gray in color and the mushrooms were beige, so no filter would have had much effect on them because both were low in color saturation. The only avenue available to me was darkroom manipulation. Yet, importantly, the zone system still gave me an exposure of sufficient density to allow me to do all the darkroom work successfully. If I had made the print digitally (this was made in 1974, long before digital photography, or even personal computers, existed), I could have employed computer manipulations to achieve roughly the same image.

Also keep in mind the important point thoroughly discussed in Chapter 4: The scene and the photograph are two very different entities! Never confuse the two. I was attracted to the mushrooms at the site by a number of things, including their astonishing size (almost a foot across) and their color, however subdued. But in the black-and-white photograph, light and composition alone are the only means of attracting the viewer. So I molded the light carefully in the darkroom to force the viewer’s eye to the mushrooms in the print as my own eye was attracted to them in the field. In essence, I simply did what I had to do! All that, I’m sure anyone would agree, is perfectly ethical.

Another of my photographs, Figure 10-14, presents a more radical departure. The doors were slightly darker than the surrounding stonework, yet they looked lighter to my eye (perhaps because of the wonderful carving on the doors). So the tones were opposite of what I thought they were. Had I realized that they were darker, I might not have made the exposure (and that would have been unfortunate, in my opinion). At the very least, I would have been aware of the enormity of the problem. But I wasn’t, until I saw the developed negative. Then I knew I was in deep trouble.

I had a goal in mind: making the doors glow as they appeared to glow when I stood before them. I used substantial dodging, burning, and bleaching to achieve that goal and overcome the unexpected difficulties. To my surprise, the final print exceeded my initial vision, and I feel fortunate for the surprisingly good result. But it was a combination of my initial vision (despite my incorrect seeing) and my determination to achieve that vision that allowed me to achieve the final print that I now display. Again, no one has ever questioned the integrity of that.

Interestingly, I find that much of the manipulation I perform in the darkroom—burning, dodging, flashing, and bleaching—is done to bring the image back in line with the way I saw it in the field. Digital practitioners report largely the same efforts on their part, which I have also found to be true in my digital shooting. The reason for this is quite logical, if not obvious. As noted in Chapter 2, the eye focuses sharply on only a three-degree angle of view. Chapter 4 delves further into that point by noting that as the eye sweeps over a scene, the iris opens and closes constantly to compensate for varying light levels. In other words, it varies its aperture to accommodate all parts of the scene. But the camera shoots everything at one aperture, necessitating a great deal of residual work in the darkroom or on the computer to do what the eye does automatically. If we could all photograph the way we see—i.e., the way the eye/brain combination sees—photography would be an easier endeavor.