Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2009/04/19
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Philip Clarke offered: >> I cannot decide, should one shoot for the darkroom or shoot for a straight print ? <<<<<<<< Philip, I've always shot for the best image right to film. However in the general sense I am not a techie, even in the days of film so I never gave any thought to darkroom while shooting whatever the assignment was. I can quite honestly say.. "I never think about anything other than tripping the shutter at precisely the right time!" Never occurred to me what I'd have to do in the darkroom other than, "damn I've got 300 rolls of film to soup and edit!" :-( Oh yeah and print! :-) In the darkroom it was always as straight a print with as little extra dodging and burning as possible. Drop exposed paper in tray, swish swish, 90 seconds later into stop bath, swish swish and into fix! Then to wash and dry. Digital? I still don't think of any after shot manipulations at anytime! Particularly these days when I constantly hear. "It'll be OK I can fix it in Photoshop!" Which has become the biggest crap cop out for lousy electronic instrument manipulators !! They are not photographers!! My goal? As always, the observation and capture of the moment is paramount. Most of what I do in PhotoShop is, auto everything. If what I see isn't too my liking from "auto adjustment" of levels, contrast etc. I cancel and try some tiny bit manually by completely using my KISS principle method as my photo career has dictated. "Keep it Simple Stupid! :-) I always try to have the print come out looking like it was just shot and out of the wet tray. Or certainly as close to the exposed image as possible with the least amount of fiddling and manipulation as possible.. In other words what you get the moment the digi cam shutter goes click! Is what you see in print. Yep and in the film/print darkroom the same philosophy applied for 50 years. Then I went digital and exactly the same method of shooting a "souping" still applies! Dr. ted