Printing the Image - Black and White

Last weekend Ann and I needed to do some printing.  Ann wasn’t sure which images she wanted to print,  so she asked me if I’d help her pick a couple.  Given she’s been working on a variety of images from our recent trips, there were several to pick from.  Pleased that she had been working a lot in black and white, and knowing that I’d been working on a couple of B&W images, I said, “Well, why don’t we narrow it down to just black and white this weekend.”  So that’s what we did!  

Ann wound up going with three images from our Death Valley trip.  And while one of the three simply didn’t print well, the other two were gems.  The first was an image I’d first seen in color, when I spent some time with her working on that near-impossible subject of light balance and color control to find that prefect balance of warm and cool to make the color image come alive.  Little did I realize that she later had worked on it in black and white!

While it’s sometimes fun to play with the high-contrast conditions that sand dune forms seem to compel, Ann decided to have a lighter hand that more accurately captures the delicate morning light we experienced, which revealed the wide variety of textures present in this scene - from the ground to the grasses, dunes and clouds.  

By keeping the contrast down, the print allows the eye to roam around the scene instead of being drawn to the dramatic shadows in the dunes or the aggressive textures on the lower part of the image.  It was a great image to teach Ann (and me) the value of restraint in development.  

Ann’s next image was from later that same day as we were heading back home.  This gave us a two-fold lesson.  Ann had worked hard  (and successfully) to bring out the massive feeling of the mountains and the energy of the clouds without going overboard.  The first print of the image, though, seemed lacking.  A spaciousness had been lost in the image.  Ann corrected for that by lightening up the meadow (if that’s what it is) in the lower half of the image.  That worked - lesson one learned.  But the image still seemed to be lacking in something.  

One of the things I recall from my previous printing days is that some images want to be a certain size.  Some images work well small, or large.  Some only work when printed small.  Others want to be bigger.  I thought this one might want (read: need) to be at least a big bigger so I suggested going to a larger paper size - 11”x14” - from the 8-1/2” x 11” we had been printing on.  It doesn’t seem like much, the long edge only went from 9” to 12”, but the image came to life!  I suspect it could go quite a bit larger!  Lesson 2 learned. 

My images came from more recent trips (I still need to return to those Death Valley images!).  The first image came from our recent trip to the Portland Japanese Garden.  It’s a wonderful example of why we keep going back there and why it’s worth visiting during different seasons.  

We started on one of our standard routes through the garden this trip and I stopped almost immediately at a view I’ve seen dozens of times, but never quite this way.  The entrance to this area looks on a tall pagoda and an ornamental rock with tall trees and a wall of vegetation that forms a backdrop for those elements.  Except this time, off to the left, I could see through two of the tall trees to the waterfall some distance behind.  

As I stood there examining the scene, I realized that some ice that had formed by the waterfall helped reveal the incredible Japanese Maple, barren of leaves, between the tall trees.  As there was a light fog in the air (not enough to see at ground level, but a wonderful light diffuser), the hanging evergreen boughs  took on a beautiful texture pointing downwards to the Japanese Maple and through it to the falls.  

I had the elements, the light, the different textures . . . all I needed was to find the right location.  It took me quite some time to find the precise location because moving a mere inch one way or the other, up or down, would change the relationships between the elements and either cause conflicts through merging, or through losing the sense of depth.  I finally found a satisfying resolution of the small tree and big tree to the right, and the falls with the trees in the foreground (in a way that emphasizes the curving Japanese Maple trunk).  Having done that, all that was left was to hope the image would capture the light and the textures in the way I experienced them.

The print captures it all!

For my second image I returned to my tree on Bald Hill Road.  I actually made three different images of this tree - starting out with a tight framing, using a slightly wider lens for this shot, and then a third with a very wide angle lens.  For several reasons, this is the best of the images.  It contains enough scale and detail to give you a feeling of a true landscape, without making the tree so small that it’s effect gets lost. 

Like with Ann’s second image (probably because of Ann’s image) I decided to give it a try on a larger paper as well.  Unlike Ann’s image, this one works fine at 7” square, but at 9” square it has a presence the smaller print doesn’t have.  The image is also a strong reminder about how difficult it is to do a good job of printing snow in black and white.  

It is not easy!