Chapter 13. Exploding Photographic Myths
DESPITE ALL THE PHOTOGRAPHY INSTRUCTION OUT THERE—and too often because of it—a number of patently incorrect ideas persist. These photographic myths must be laid to rest. They push photographers in the wrong direction. Let’s reveal the invalidity of these commonly held beliefs.
Some myths have already been dealt with in this book. By approaching them in a somewhat different manner, and perhaps by imparting a different emphasis to them, this chapter may serve as worthwhile reinforcement. Several of the myth-breakers I will discuss are primarily geared toward traditional black-and-white photography, yet many of the concepts are extremely valuable to both traditional and digital photographers.
The fascinating relationships between the wild raspberry leaves amidst the surrounding corn lily leaves caught my eye on the Iceberg Lake trail in Glacier National Park. Using my 4 × 5 camera with a 210mm lens, I aimed almost straight down, placing the raspberry leaves directly in the center of the image, making sure the edges were clean, with nothing distracting jutting in or leading the eye out. Does center placement break a well-known rule about composition? You bet it does! This chapter deals with several well-known photographic rules that deserve to be avoided, or better yet, discarded entirely.
Figure 13-1. Raspberry and Corn Lily
Myth #1: The zone system gives you a negative that yields a straight print of exactly what you saw in the field, with no burning or dodging required
This simply isn’t true, but it’s the most widespread misconception about the zone system. It’s wrong because of the following fact: what you see and what the camera sees is quite different.
As you look at a scene, your eyes scan it randomly, jumping from important area to important area, seeing only small bits of the scene sharply at any moment. As your eyes jump from dark areas to bright areas, the irises open to let in more light when you look the dark areas or close down to prevent the full dose when you look at brighter areas. The brain, working in concert with the eyes, further opens up things in dark areas and closes down things in bright areas. In other words, you view every scene at multiple apertures. Without these automatic mechanisms, it could be very painful indeed to look at a bright spot after looking at a dark spot. Think of what it’s like to come out of a darkened restaurant or afternoon movie into the bright sun!
The camera sees the entire scene at one aperture, the aperture you’ve chosen for the image. It cannot change the aperture to accommodate different parts of a scene. Thus, the camera does not allow the film or sensor to see what you see when you look at a scene. A camera is a mechanical/electronic device lacking the automatic features that allow your eyes to open up or close down. No matter how many remarkable features your camera may have, it still can’t do this!
Since the camera can’t see the way you see, you must learn to see the way the camera sees. You must learn when the brightness range is excessive, when it’s just right, and when it’s too low.
First, you have to expose the negative to get ample density and tonal detail in all areas where you want detail in your final print. With film, the zone system (especially the extended zone system—see Chapter 9 and Myth #3 below) is extremely good at yielding the proper exposure to get everything on the negative with usable densities. If you’re shooting digital and the range of light exceeds the sensor’s capability, follow the histogram and make several exposures at various settings, which can later be merged into a single image with an extended dynamic range. Let’s assume you’ve exposed the negative correctly to obtain ample negative density and/or tonal detail throughout. If the brightness range is excessive (i.e., if it’s greater than you want it to be for the print you wish to make), cut back on your negative development to reduce the inherent contrast from that of the scene to that which you want to have on your negative. This is known as “minus development”. If the brightness range is approximately what you want it to be in your final print, give the negative “normal development”, which preserves the brightness (or contrast) range of the scene. If the brightness range is less than you want it to be, give the negative “plus development” to expand the contrast range of the scene. The amount of minus or plus development varies depending on how excessively contrasty or excessively flat the scene is compared to your vision of the final print. These are artistic decisions, not decisions based on replicating the scene.
I have consistently stated that it’s necessary to develop the negative for the contrast range you want to have compared to the inherent contrast range of the scene. If a scene is high in contrast and you want even more contrast for your interpretive purposes, give the negative plus development. If a scene is relatively low in contrast and you want to soften it further, give the negative minus development. You’re allowed to do it. It’s legal! It’s even artistically acceptable.
On the other hand, if you always give normal development to a negative when the range of the scene is about 5 zones, if you always give plus development when the range is lower than 5 zones, or if you always give minus development if the range is greater than 5 zones, you’re doing “formula photography” and you’ll always end up with predictable, boring images. You’ll rarely express yourself in a meaningful way. Your prints may be technically perfect with good blacks and good whites and all sorts of tones in between (see Myth #7), but they’ll generally fall flat emotionally. You’ll produce technical gems that say nothing.
Even if you’ve done everything right with your negative exposure and development, how often does light fall on every part of the scene exactly the way you want it to appear in the final image? Answer: very rarely! Most of the time, some shadows are too dark and some highlight areas are too bright, or vice versa. In a portrait, light may be glaring on one side of the face or on a shiny forehead, and the hair on the opposite side may be too dark. In a landscape, one hill among others may be too brightly lit with sunlight, while the others are under dark clouds, yet it is still within the tonal range of a fine straight print. All of the trees in a scene may be exactly the same brightness, yet it might look more interesting if some were lighter and some darker. For expressive purposes you want visual interest, not literal accuracy. Even in straight documentary photography, you may need some manipulations to smooth out ragged aspects of uncontrolled light.
In order to solve these problems, you’ll need to dodge the areas you want lighter and burn the areas you want darker. The zone system can’t make the light hit everything in amounts that always coincide with your wishes. The zone system is a powerful system, but it doesn’t control the light in a scene!
Coupling that fact with the fact that the camera doesn’t see the scene the way your eyes see it, it is obvious that the zone system can’t be expected to yield a straight print without manipulation. In my lifetime, I’ve produced between 300 and 400 photographs that I would be proud to exhibit. Of those, only two are straight prints with no burning, dodging, or bleaching. Those two prints make me nervous. The next time I print either one of them, I’ll dodge the upper right corner, then burn it back, just so I feel like I’m doing something useful in the darkroom!