Week 5. Notes

Burning and Dodging

You may produce a print that has good overall exposure and contrast, but there may be areas which are too light or too dark. To lighten an area of the print dodging is used. To darken an area burning is used.

Dodging is selectively holding back exposure to lighten an area of a print. The amount of dodging varies from print to print. After determining the area that requires less exposure find a suitable opaque object (this will range from a circle of card board on a wire to a corner of paper to your hand) to block a portion of the print for some of the overall exposure time.   Whatever is used to block the light should be in motion to prevent hard lines of light being noticeable. 

Burning is selectively adding more exposure to darken an area of a print. The amount of burning varies from print to print. After determining the area that requires more exposure find a suitable form to allow light to pass through onto the desired area of a print. This form should be opaque to block light from the rest of the print. Paper, will allow some light through, while card stock or cardboard, or your hand will not. 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Alternative Lighting Conditions


Night photography

Just as how daylight photographers pay attention to the position and angle of the sun, night photographers should also pay careful attention to the moon.  A low-laying moon can create long shadows on cross-lit objects, whereas an overhead moon creates harsher, downward shadows.

An additional variable is that the moon can have varying degrees of intensity, depending where it is during its 29.5 day cycle of waxing and waning.  A full moon can be a savior for reducing the required exposure time and allowing for extended depth of field, while a moonless night greatly increases star visibility.  Furthermore, the intensity of the moon can be chosen at a time which provides the ideal balance between artificial light (streetlamps) and moonlight. Gauging exposure times during a full moon can be tricky; use f/5.6 and 30 seconds at ISO 400 as a starting point (if subject is diffuse and directly lit), then adjust towards scenarios 1-4 accordingly if OK.

Another factor rarely noticed during daylight is movement of the light source (sun or moon).  The long exposure time required for moonlight photography often means that the moon may have moved significantly over the course of the exposure.  Moon movement softens harsh shadows, however too much movement can create seemingly flat light.

Subject in Moonlight – Static Chart

The following exposures are for f/8 using 400 ISO.
See the dynamic form below for different aperture and film settings. The exposure
times are rough starting points, the subject surface (reflection), ambient light and
other factors will effect your exposure. When in doubt, bracket.

Moon Phase	Days after Full
Full Moon	–
Gibbous Moon	3-4 days after
Quarter Moon	7 days after
Crescent Moon	10-11 days after
New Moon	14 days after

Note: The moon phases are reflexive, so 3 days after a full moon is the same
as 3 days before a full moon.  Moon Exposure Calculation LINK

Fill with FLASHLIGHTS


Without a sun, you can leave the shutter open fairly long and compose how you want. Try 2 minute exposure at f4 on 200 ISO or 1 min f4 400 ISO.  You will need a tripod. Set up your framing, and use the bulb (B) or time feature (T) on your shutter speeds. Bulb you will need to keep the shutter open manually, time will stay open until you trigger the shutter a second time. (this is recommended for longer exposures). Experiment with painting in subjects. Or using the flashlight to fill in dark areas where you might want detail. This works similarly to burning when printing. Use the flashlight to bring out more detail. 

FIRE (works, spinning, sparklers etc)

6 seconds in duration on 200 ISO at f4 or 6 seconds on 400 ISO at f5.6 for 6 seconds - just enough to light up the people. This is a base line suggestion, if you can meter, do- definitely brackett. Think about the photos you've seen where people write their names or draw pictures with laser pointers.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Reciprocity Failure

Reciprocity Failure is a problem that occurs with film’s ability to evenly measure light during long exposures. The characteristics of film is that during an exposure it is initially very sensitive to light but as exposure time increases the film’s ability to record light is diminished. So what a light meter may tell you should be a 1-minute exposure, for a particular film that exposure may actually need to be 8-minutes.
here is a link to an HP5 correction chart for long exposures

Black and White films are effective more by the reciprocity failure than color or slide film.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Solarization

Solarisation is when the image recorded on a negative or on a photographic print is wholly or partially reversed in tone. Dark areas appear light or light areas appear dark. 

Solarization is the process of re-exposing photographic paper during the development process. The result is an eerie silver image which contains light lines between the shadows and the highlighted areas. 

Areas that have been exposed the least are affected the most during the re-exposure of the print. The darker areas or shadows on the prints show little change during the solarization process.

The term is synonymous with the Sabattier Effect when referring to negatives, but is technically incorrect when used to refer to prints
To begin the process, develop and agitate your paper normally. When the image begins to appear, remove the print from the developer and place it into a tray of water for about ten seconds. This will slow the development process.

The next step is to re-expose the paper to light. This exposure should last only about two seconds. The light source should be a low watt bulb, 15 to 20 watt, and should be three to four feet away from the print.

Th

e fi

nal step is to put the paper back into the developer .

A solarized print - ManRay

Tips for gaining maximum results.

• Using high contrast papers will give you a more dramatic effect.
• Slow films are easier to work with since they require longer exposure time to develop.
• Since re-exposure effects the highlights, use a print with a lot of light areas to achieve the most dramatic results

The Sabattier Effect is essentially the same process, but done with the developing film and not the print. Explore at your own risk.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Paper Negative

There are two ways of using paper negatives.The paper is processed to give a negative, and a final positive print is obtained by contact printing. If you are metering the light set the ISO at anywhere between 4 and 10. You will need to experiment and "bracket". Write down your lighting conditions and exposure times. 

The paper negative is made by sandwiching the original positive print, emulsion-to-emulsion, with a fresh sheet of paper, and pressing them tightly together under a sheet of heavy glass. You then expose the “sandwich” to the light of the enlarger, just as if you were making a contact sheet from a roll of film negatives.  

A paper negative and the contact print

more info here on paper negatives
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What a colour negative looks like if you process it as black & white & scan it: