more on filters...

Filters add/limit contrast... higher numbers, more contrast, lower number limited contrast.

They increase contrast and can really make your pictures POP!

Variable Contrast Filters

Variable contrast filters are used to increase contrast in flat images.

Contrast filters are necessary for increasing or decreasing the amount of contrast in your print. If your test prints are coming out much too gray, then increasing the number of your filter will increase the contrast, making the whites whiter and the blacks blacker. Everyone has a different preference when it comes to deciding which contrast filter to start with, but I have always found for my purposes that a contrast filter of 3 suits me well when I’m working on a black and white enlarger.

Changing your contrast filter as you do test prints will also affect your exposure times, so don’t expect the same results in exposure when changing from a 3 to a 3 1/2 or a 4. You will need to make a new test strip!!!

The first photograph here shows the effect of a lower contrast filter. The second illustrates the effect of using a contrast filter higher in number.

D&B example

http://staff.drewloker.com/dodgeburn.htm

Dodging and burning are terms used in photography for a technique used during the printing process to manipulate the exposure of a selected area(s) on a photographic print, deviating from the rest of the image's exposure. Dodging decreases the exposure for areas of the print that the photographer wishes to be lighter, while burning increases the exposure to areas of the print that should be darker.

Any material with varying degrees of opacity may be used, as preferred, to cover and/or obscure the desired area for burning or dodging. One may use a transparency with text, designs, patterns, a stencil, or a completely opaque material shaped according to the desired area of burning/dodging.

Ansel Adams elevated dodging and burning to an art form. Many of his famous prints were manipulated in the darkroom with these two techniques. Adams wrote a comprehensive book on this very topic called The Print.

ADVANCED DODGING AND BURNING:

http://www.photovisionmagazine.com/articles/fstopprinting.htm

Landscapes!!!

Ansel Easton Adams (February 20, 1902 – April 22, 1984) was an American photographer and environmentalist, best known for his black-and-white photographs of the American West, especially in Yosemite National Park. One of his most famous photographs was Moon and Half Dome, Yosemite National Park, California.

"When I'm ready to make a photograph, I think I quite obviously see sin my minds eye something that is not literally there, in the true meaning of the word. I'm interest in expressing something that is built from within, rather than just extracted from without."

SCHEDULE

Your first photo assignment is due on Wednesday 10-6. You must turn in:

• contact sheet and test strip
• print and test strip

You will be graded on:

• exposure
• focus
• composition
• camera/darkroom technique

You should also plan to have finished shooting your next roll of film, landscapes, by Wednesday 10-6.