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Indifferent Negative: The most important part of Edward Weston's approach was his insistence that the photographer should previsualize the final result. As early as 1922 he wrote: "The real test of not only technical proficiency, but intelligent conception, is not in the use of some indifferent negative as a basis to work from, but in the ability to see one's finished print on the ground glass in all its desired qualities and values before exposure."
5. Never be too proud to reshoot a poor negative. Did you make an error in exposure? Did your tripod slip and cause a fuzzy negative? Or did you make one of the other dozens of errors which can almost but not quite ruin a negative? If so, do not try to cover up by struggling with the negative by means of darkroom trickery, but instead shoot the picture over again if that is at all possible. To reshoot is to confess a measure of failure to "your client, of course, but you can make up for that by going all-out for a masterpiece on your second try.
To take these small portraits, Disderi first made a wet-plate negative with a special Camera that had four lenses and a plateholder that could be slid from side to side. Four exposures were made on each half of the plate; thus eight poses could be taken on one negative. A single print from this negative could then be cut up into eight separate portraits. Unskilled labor was used for this work; the production of the cameraman and printer was thus increased eightfold. |
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