Waiting for the weather to change and some warming happening, I got to reminiscing about my experience with paper negatives. Early in 1959 while starting a new job in photography I’d tried to make a ”fine art” picture by setting up some props and photographing them with a newly acquired 4X5 Graphic camera. There was a lacy edged table cloth draped over an ornate picture frame with a pitcher and cup in the fore ground.
Being a novice I hadn’t thought about smoothing out any creases or folds in the cloth so when later printing the “fine art” picture found all the afore mentioned folds to appear unsightly and was disappointed. A more knowledgeable associate asked if I’d like to try a paper negative technique to save the picture and of course I did (not having a clue of what he was talking about).He had me print an 11X14 print and darken any light areas with a soft pencil then contact print it and darken any light areas again and finally contact print this paper negative resulting in a print without the offending creases etc. but it now resembled a charcoal drawing. This was my only experience with a paper negative till many years later. Spring forward to 1996 after traveling to Colorado with some friends to see the aspen trees turning in September and finding we were a week late as most of the trees had dropped their leaves. We stumbled upon a beautiful tree still glowing with it’s golden leaves in the little town of Como and I had to capture it on film, 35 mm color transparency slides. After processing and mounting the film I found that although the tree and it’s immediate surrounds looked good there was a suburban neighborhood with power lines and a lot of clutter behind it. Worrying about this picture off and on for a year or so, it came to me that I could enlarge the slide up to an 8X10 paper negative (the largest paper I had at the time) and block out the unwanted areas with pencil , magic marker and opaque paper taped to the back of the print. Then contact it (slightly under exposed) on to another piece of photo paper and using light oils and colored pencils return it to a color picture. It isn’t a photograph or a painting but I feel I saved a picture that I liked. I realize this could be done in Photoshop but I didn’t have access to that program or know how to use it at the time and I kind of enjoyed the process so will probably do it again. Since then I’ve discovered in-camera paper negatives and fallen in love with it’s look and feel, taking portraits and scenic’s, etc. Really can’t figure out why I never tried it before. Think maybe you all are responsible for my finding this technique.
Can’t thank you enough,
Don
Guess that's enough rambeling for now.
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