I mean every, yes, EVERY B&W print that you see exhibited will have had some
form of 'manipulation'. There is, unfortunately, no such thing as a perfect
negative, film, no matter how good it is, is not capable of recording images
as we see them so it is perfectly normal and acceptable to make adjustments
in the darkroom.
If you are taking B&W landscapes, you very often have to decide to expose
for either the highlights or the shadow detail, you can't do both. It is
standard practice to 'hold back' the foreground and give extra exposure to
the sky when printing. It is also quite normal to 'dodge and burn' for
different areas of the print.
This is the beauty of B&W. This is what makes it interesting and more of and
'art' form than colour work. I have often spent well over an hour trying to
produce one single print - with greater or lesser success.
Adams was a genius, he never tried to hide the way his images are produced
and whilst his pictures of Yosemite are incredible, I am sure they do not
actually overstate the real life beauty of the area, but without
'manipulation', you would probably have found the images to have been a
little more bland.
Darkroom technique is as much part of photography as anything else, some
would argue that it is probably one of the most important areas of real
photography. If you were a student of photography, you would almost
certainly find that at least the first year and probably a good deal longer
would be solely on B&W and darkroom practice.
Steve
> Do you mean every black and white print, or every B&W Ansel Adams print?
I'd
> agree with the latter being the case, but not necessarily the former.
>
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