BW Technical Foundation

[Guest joewehry]

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I came across some wonderful images of Andreas Pein, example link below, and LFI 2/2006

 

http://neunplus.files.wordpress.com/2008/01/wading_ap00001.jpg

 

I wonder technically how images like that are created. (Wonderful artistic vision aside for the moment.)

 

Specifically:

 

1) film selection - higher speed (1600-3200) or lower (400 ish)

 

2) exposure - meter highlights so that they go more towards middle grey or meter mid-tones and decrease exposure to push them to blacks?

 

3) darkroom - smudge effects added later or in-camera / movement / lens selection / vignetting, etc.

 

4) time of day - should I be looking more towards dusk / night with higher contrast between city light and dark?

 

When I try to get images like this, I tend to simply get underexposed images with no extreme contrasts. I feel like I'm trying to create a brush effect with a crayon and that I'm simply using the wrong tool(s) and need to start on a different path.

 

So far I've used XP2super and KodakXP125 and BW400cn, scanned and fiddled in Aperture, but nothing satisfying.

 

Any suggestions on the right tools would be helpful. As for the vision.... well, I've got a ways to go.

 

Cheers

 

Joe

[tgray]

Some of that definitely looks like it was done in post, either in the darkroom or on the computer.

 

If in the dakroom, it's either very high contrast printing, or more likely, lith printing. The neg could have been developed high contrast too.

 

I don't have much for you. Look into lith printing. Also, those three negatives you mentioned are about the last ones I would try. Check out Tri-X, HP5+, or one of the 3200 speed films.