Even after lowering the ASA of the film, I still place my shadows in Zone 4. This makes my shadow placement closer to Ilford’s or Kodak’s (or your) Zone 4½ or Zone 5. It gives me a denser negative, but it still gives me 10 zones of good negative separations above that level before I run into the shoulder of the density curve. So I’m not losing any options. Of course, if I run into a scene with high contrast, I’ll give the negative plenty of minus development to make the highlight densities printable.
In the article mentioned above, Vestal also pointed out that he often places highlights in Zone 9 (“I expose four stops more than the meter says for the bright tone.”) That’s perfectly fine, but it’s also fine to place highlights even higher—way higher if necessary! I’ve done it for years with excellent, printable results.
My negatives have good, solid densities. They may require longer exposures or a more open aperture for enlargement, but when I place my shadows sufficiently high and develop appropriately for the highlights, I get all the separations and snap I want in the shadows. My prints are neither tonally nor spatially flat. The extra time under the enlarger does not materially shorten my life. It’s not a problem.
Students should not be taught to keep their negatives thin. Negatives should be stout in order to yield good tonal separations from the blacks to the whites. It may be easier to focus a thinner negative, and thin negatives show lower grain—but what’s more important, a negative with lower grain that is a bit easier to focus, or a print that’s alive?
It turns out that Ansel Adams did photography an immense service by creating the zone system and an immense disservice by saddling people with the dictum, “Place your shadows in Zone 3.” It’s wrong. I doubt that he followed his own dictum. I place my shadows in Zone 4 or a bit higher. So does David Vestal, and I recommend that you do the same. You’ll get better results. (And the sensitometrist’s exposure/density curve explains exactly why ... when you shoot in the real, textured world!)
The south transept, with its remarkable stairway, is the only intact portion of this awesome northern England structure. The rest was demolished numerous times in the English/Scottish wars. It’s a wonderful scene with exceptionally high contrast, from the windows at the top of the stairs (with the noonday sun just outside the rightmost window) to the distant alcove at the bottom. Placing the window at nearly Zone 15, and then compacting the contrast range with compensating development of the negative, I retained more than a 10-zone range of the scene on the negative in printable fashion. The print exhibits rich detail and tonal separations everywhere.
Figure 13-5. Stairway, Hexham Abbey
Myth #4: Negative densities should be within a fixed density range, and negatives that don’t fit into that range are useless
The first three myths directly involve the zone system. This one begins to move away from it, but not by much. It may seem like I’m fixated on the zone system, but I don’t really think about it much in my own work because it’s part of me. Just as you drive without thinking about driving, you can afford the luxury of not thinking about the zone system once you learn it. To use it properly, you’ve got to understand it so thoroughly that it’s instinctive.
I’ve already pointed out that I use the full range of the negative. I don’t expect all of my negatives to have the same density range, and they don’t! Some people would say, “They’re all over the board!” That’s absolutely correct. Let’s clarify this with a few examples.
Examples #1 and #2
Suppose I enter an old growth forest on a typically cloudy day in the Pacific Northwest, somewhere near my home. I can do an average reading on the forest and give it normal development, getting a range of tonalities from Zone 4 to Zone 8. (Remember, we’re going higher on the scale for better shadow separations than the usual Zone 3–7 spread.) Let’s forget about exposing this negative from Zone 3 to Zone 7, even if those are the tones desired in the final print (Myth #3). So, this negative now has a standard density range of Zone 4 to Zone 8. We’ll call this example #1.
Suppose I have a different idea for this scene: I want it to look light, ethereal, and very dreamlike. The contrast range is the same, so suppose I expose this negative with a spread from Zone 8 to Zone 12. Then I give that negative extreme minus development, or even compensating development, to radically reduce the high densities. The exposed Zone 12 drops down to about Zone 8½ or 9, while the darkest part of the scene drops from Zone 8 to about Zone 5½ or 6. (I’m not being exact here, but just using educated guesses. But then, I’m never exact! I fully expect to manipulate the print by dodging, burning, bleaching, etc., in the darkroom anyway, so exactness doesn’t matter.)
This flat sandstone formation in Phipps Wash, Utah struck me as a highly stylized, snow-covered mountain summit with rows of rolling hills trailing off behind it. Contrast was low, less than a zone from the brightest to the darkest portion. I increased contrast to the maximum extent in negative development, then printed at the highest possible contrast level (170 units of magenta filtration) followed by minor amounts of bleaching.
Figure 13-6. Summit and Rolling Hills
Now I have a contrast spread of a little less than three zones, from about Zones 6–9 instead of Zones 8–12. If I print those values just a half zone lower, I’ll end up with a high key, dreamy scene where the tones range from something lighter than a gray card all the way up to near-whites. Can you envision this hypothetical print? The negative that produces it is vastly different from the Zone 4–8 spread of the previous example. We’ll call this example #2.
Example #1 is pure realism. Example #2 is pure fantasy. Both are legitimate. Both express a feeling about the place, but example #2 almost creates a new world out of the one I encountered. Its negative densities are all quite high, starting from an initial exposure that is substantially higher.
Example #3
I’m photographing in one of the English cathedrals. A distant stained glass window is eight zones brighter than a dark alcove off to the side. The rest of the cathedral is much darker than the window but brighter than the alcove. The distant window, along with others, is the source of the interior light. My goal is to render everything visible, with detail from the stained glass window to the dark alcove. If I place the alcove at Zone 4½, the window falls at Zone 12½. The rest of the interior architecture lies between Zones 5½ and 7½. Because the cathedral is rather dark, and I’ve closed my aperture for maximum depth of field, I need a long exposure. Then reciprocity failure forces even higher contrast (see Chapter 9).
The highlight is so sensitized to light during the exposure that I give the negative compensating development (Figure 13-7). This brings the window down in density from the exposed Zone 14 to perhaps Zone 10 in the developed negative. The alcove, too, drops in value to Zone 3½ or so, while the rest of the interior ends up around Zone 4 to Zone 6. This negative is moderately thin to average, except for the very dense window area.
Example #4
I find a flat rock with fascinating patterns that speak volumes to me. Contrast is very low—perhaps just one zone of difference between the darkest and brightest portion of the rock—so I want to increase the inherent contrast as much as possible (Figure 13-6). If I underexpose and overdevelop, I can’t increase contrast much because the low zones don’t expand during extended development. So I expose normally and then overdevelop, an approach that I find far more effective than underexposing before overdeveloping.