silver gelatin Archives - s2z Photography Blog

The Timeless Allure of Silver Gelatin Prints: A Journey through My Urban Landscapes

a digital scan of a black and white negative, the picture depicts a ravaged urban landscape in a place called Bulla. there is a path that cuts diagonally though the scene, the gound and cliff face or made fomr a white soil, the sky has a soft hazy appreance — An image entitled Bulla from my 2022 solo exhibition, titled “thanks Pandemic. It is a Hand printed silver gelatin print. Museum quality, toned in selenium, 17cm x 17cm. From a vintage negative printed in 2022.

In the ever-evolving world of photography, where digital images dominate the scene, the silver gelatin print remains a testament to the timeless beauty of traditional photographic processes. I am among many artists who have continued working with this medium. My work not only highlights the aesthetic charm of silver gelatin prints but also underscores their enduring significance in contemporary art.

A digital scan of a silver gelatin print depicting a creek and a mound of mulch, in the midst of which a saplig struggles through. — Thornbury from my 2022 soloo exhibtion ‘Thanks Pandemic’. Hand printed silver gelatin print. Museum quality, toned in selenium, 17cm x 17cm. From a vintage negative printed in 2022.

The Silver Gelatin Print

Silver gelatin prints are a type of black-and-white photographic print made using a gelatin emulsion containing light-sensitive silver salts. This process, which has been in use since the late 19th century, involves exposing photographic film or paper to light and then developing it through a series of chemical baths. The result is an image with rich tonal ranges and exquisite detail.

The Beauty of Silver Gelatin Prints for me are:-

Rich Tonal Range: One of the most striking features of silver gelatin prints is their ability to render a wide range of tones, from deep blacks to delicate highlights. This tonal richness gives the images a depth and dimensionality that are often lacking in digital prints.

Textural Quality: The physical texture of a silver gelatin print, with its fine grain and subtle sheen, adds a tactile dimension to the viewing experience. This quality can make the images feel more tangible and real.

Archival Durability: Silver gelatin prints are known for their longevity. When properly processed and stored, they can last for over a century without significant degradation, making them a preferred choice for collectors and archivists.

A digital can of a silver geltain print. Melbourne’s CBD seen from the roof of the Commonwealth bank building in the late 1980s shownig the skyline and the Jolimont railyards with the MCG in the distance under a dramaitc thunderous sky. — Melbourne’s CBD seen from the roof of the Commonwealth bank building in the late 1980s. Hand printed silver gelatin print. Museum quality, toned in selenium, 17cm x 17cm. From a vintage negative printed in 2022.

The Process?

The process is in some ways cathartic. It is most definitely slow. Attributes that some see as an antithesis to contemprary digital photogrpahy. Some of my best ideas come to me while I stand over the sink watching the print develop. I have a dedicated playlist on my iPhone for music that contributes to a mental state that borders on meditation. These traits are part of the driving force behind my continuing to work with silver gelatin prints in this way.

My Urban Landscapes

My urban landscapes are a perfect illustration of the beauty and versatility of silver gelatin prints. my work attempts to captures the essence of city life with a unique blend of realism and artistic interpretation.

Contrast and Clarity: my prints are characterised by their striking tonality and impeccable clarity. The play of light and shadow in his urban scenes brings out the intricate details of architectural forms and textures, creating images that are both visually stunning and deeply evocative.

Mood and Atmosphere: Through his use of silver gelatin, I am able to convey the mood and atmosphere of urban environments in a way that digital images often cannot. Whether it’s the misty aura of a city morning or the stark shadows of a bustling street at night, my prints strive to evoke a strong sense of place and time.

Timeless Quality: There is a timeless quality to my urban landscapes that transcends the ephemeral nature of digital media. My imagesask to to exist in a space between past and present, capturing moments that are both fleeting and enduring.

The Art of Seeing

Through my work I try to encourage viewers to see the urban landscape with fresh eyes.I use meticulous attention to detail and composition to invites you to pause and appreciate the beauty in everyday scenes. The use of silver gelatin prints adds an element of craftsmanship and tradition, reminding us of the rich history of photography and its continuing relevance.

In a world where digital photography is ubiquitous, the silver gelatin print stands as a symbol of the enduring power of traditional photographic techniques. My urban landscapes exemplify the unmatched beauty and emotional depth that this medium can achieve. Through my lens, you are hopefully reminded of the timeless allure of the city and the art of seeing the world in all its nuanced splendor.

About the author.

Stuart Murdoch is an Artist and Part time Photo Educator, with over 30 years of teaching experience. He has also nearly 40 years of silver gelatin printing under his belt. He contemplates many things photographic. His ruminations include his own work as well other’s and the aspects of technology that impact on the sharing and consumption of Photographs. And of course the act of making and taking photographs in the 21st century. Photobooks sit quite high on his radar too these days.
☛ Website | Flickr | Instagram| s2z digital garden | Tumblr | leave a tip, or buy a print

How I Got Here Part Three?

still from 20 years ago today — Still life from 12th of May 2000 19:35:36

Life and time commitments make it difficult to plan shooting. Working around good light and the best seasons complicates this. To then process film on top of that, means a lot. Not to mention that materials, such as black and white papers, are running out as well. This puts me in a quandary. It means, my creative energies would be better spent exploring ideas and the world around me. using other means, preferably with a lens and a light sensitive material of some sort.

a self portrait from 2000 made using a phone camera

Technological changes mean I can create good quality images quickly . Excellent ones If I’m careful in an analogue sense] and easily using the smallest of devices. The caveat being they will probably only ever exist in cyber space. Why then not explore other ideas now. I mean all that other stuff, I’d felt was important for all this time, is it important? In this image saturated media landscape? Why not just see if I can’t get the ideas across using the simplest of tools? With nothing more to deal with than the 3 most important elements of photography. Light, Time, Space.

Well hey presto! Here I am using a mobile phone and or a small camera. Hopefully getting some idea across about the world I see. one that I am somewhat incongruously part of. One that I can share in real time or in a myriad of other ways.

North Geelong, Victoria, Australia 2022-10-26 14:12:21

There is somewhat of a leap of faith here. Between finely crafted silver gelatin prints, and the bulk of work I’m producing these days. So let me retrace my steps. Somewhere between 1994 and 2004, I started meandering in other directions. A Grad. Dip. Ed and an MA, were two of them. Computers the internet and Desktop Publishing were other side interests. All the while, digital cameras are following Moore’s Law. Desktop printers are getting better and better. By 2004 I’m hooked into flickr using my Nikon Coolpix 5400, bought after travelling the world. This is the first digital camera I owned, capable of producing reasonable A4 prints. It is not the 1st I ever owned. The first I owned, had died a quiet death in Wales on the same trip. In the interim had produced 13,000 plus images, a tiny selection of which made one of my 1st e-books, “buy, buy, buy”.

The current iPhone I use now creates both RAW and HEIF files. I have printed these files to A2, so my digital toolset is getting physically smaller. All in all a good thing. Now I spend a large amount of time choosing images to upload to flickr. Book creation forms a major part of my creative energy now too. As film prices have skyrocketed that aspect of my production slows. I now too have a scanner at home. I plan on revisiting my 30 year old colour film archive. This project alone should produce I hope at least 2 or 3 bodies of work. Also, several social media sites have risen attempting to usurp Instagram.

But I digress. As I said 2004 and getting a flickr account, was somewhat of a turning point for me. The first few years on flickr were pretty insane. Eventually I picked up on some patterns and ideas that were not dissimilar to the real world. Particularly amongst amateur photographers. For example.

35 mm DSLRs produce better images than point and shoot cameras, allegedly.
Shallow Depth of Filed has some special magic quality about it. Which in turn, spawned a slather of cults/followers/groups 11,000 on flickr at time of writing.
Skin/sex sells, but I guess I knew that already but had forgotten it
Subtlety/complexity was often overlooked
Democracy exists in a way I’d never experienced it before [is this a unique web/forum thing?]
I don’t need to upload daily, and can even ‘curate’ my images in advance before uploading.

Anyway, I enjoyed those first few years prior to the Yahoo buyout immensely. I still do enjoy my time on flickr, but in a much more pared back kind of way. Two of the factors I enjoy about flickr, are. The amount of folks who seemed prepared to push the envelope on photography. The interface design, particularly compared to ‘deviantart’ and ‘fotolog’. In the beginning though it, flickr or my experience of it, was still somehow tied into the idea of a polished and finished ‘object’. You know the stuff I’d learnt at University.

Somewhere around 2006/2007, things slowly moved in another direction. I knew it was pointless obsessing over colour and colour management. This is still a very poorly misunderstood idea. Not to mention, interfaces and browsers interfere with these factors anyway. I began wondering then, how I could add a layer of complexity to my images that was uniquely digital. How I could use flickr and the internet to exploit that? So I then began looking at other ideas.

Maps have always fascinated me. They, give some clue to your geographical location. Which in turn hints at who you are, and in turn may give some clues to your culture. One thing that is unique to digital photography is, Exif Data. Digital exif data maps to the second when you made the image. The Web itself has grown to allow people ways to geographically and visually place images into maps. These images then add data to larger databases. Databases that collectively and individually add to the greater understanding of who we are, and where we are.

Coode Island, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. 2023-01-29 16:26:49

Time, place, identity/memory are driving factors behind much of my output. Yet. I’m also still not only interested in what makes a photograph “good”? But now, how I can use the simplest of tools to create images this way? The biggest change for me though is, that I carry at least one and often 2 or 3 small digital devices everywhere. And can work at an intuitive level that I’ve never been able or allowed myself to work at before. [Once I’ve learnt how to exploit or overcome the shortcomings of each device]. Intuition is for me the most difficult of creative processes to justify. In this day and age, of huge staged, over-manipulated, images. That adorn the halls of many Arts institutions.

For me, seeing comes before speaking. Therefore why an image I made exists is often more a visceral thing than an intellectual exercise. Although, the intellectual stimulus that a good photograph provides IS important too.

Let me finish off by, presenting one of my favourite little poems I picked up while studying at art school. It for me sums up art and photography so well.

“In modern thought, [if not in fact]

nothing is that doesn’t act

So that is reckoned wisdom which

describes the scratch

but not the itch”

Anon.

part 1, || part 2

About the author.

How I Got Here Part Two?

So we’ve established in the beginning, I was interested in what I would call a fine print. Based on the concerns of other photographers who’ve gone before me. Such as Ansel Adam’s Technique, and later, feebly attempting to explore the surreal and philosophical underpinnings of Frederick Sommer’s ideas.

Frederick Sommer Petrified Forest National Monument, Arizona1940 — Frederick Sommer, Petrified Forest National Monument, Arizona
1940, Gelatin silver print, (20.4 × 25 cm)

The next and final question is how, do you make/get a fine print? When one starts to get serious about your prints, it easier to produce good prints from good negs, plenty of shadow detail, not too blown out in the highlights, with hopefully a long scale of tones, [all based on a well published list of characteristics of materials.]

Long scales of tone, then give you license to manipulate them, the tones. Grain was a no-no, and high contrast was considered bad form, unless you had a good reason for it. Remember this is based on the ideas that the f64 group had pioneered.

black and white print of Dynon Road circa 2015 before the infrastructure came into affect — Dynon Road circa 2015 gelatin silver gelatin print 19 x 19 cms

This necessitated knowing your materials intimately, both film and paper. [I still use the same film today as when I started exploring materials over 30 years ago, but not the same developer or paper.] It also often meant lugging a tripod EVERYWHERE, because like good ol’ Uncle Ansel, you shot at the smallest possible aperture to get the maximum amount of Depth of Field. Usually on Medium Format or Large Format Cameras to help keep grain to a minimum. To keep your images sharp, you not only ALWAYS used a tripod, but a lens hood as well. Depending on your film developer combination*, even on bright sunny days, the best you sometimes could get was 1/8 a second at f22. Being a ‘landscape’ photographer, I never practised hand holding at low speeds, and today I still feel a little weird shooting wide open.
As a consequence I rarely photographed on a whim, and unless I was lucky enough to have a boot full of gear with you at all times, making images required a level of preparation and planning that would make trips to the Himalayas look like a picnic in the park.

Pylons near the Westgate bridge circa 1994 gelatin silver gelatin print 19 x 19 cms

So; given the effort required to get your gear to the spot and with hopefully good light, you also needed to get the best neg you could, you were always trying to make sure you exposed the negative correctly, and then developed it to it’s full potential, if you were developing your own black and white film. I think I’m pretty good at developing my own b&w, but when compared to the ‘masters’ I learnt from I’ve another 20 years of practice to go.
Bad negatives, and I have plenty of them, were the bane of my life, but often got fewer and further between, as I became more skilled at my craft. Ever wonder what to look for in a bad neg?
Here’s a list of ‘straight photography’ no-no’s unless the idea or the print is enhanced by it**.

Camera Shake, not to be confused with poor/incorrect focus
Flare
Dust and scratches on the Negative/Print
Poor/Incorrect focus, neg or print
Empty blacks with no detail in a print
Highlights with no detail, in your prints unless spectral like chrome
Flat or Muddy tonality in your prints
Poor tonal separation in your prints
Chromatic Aberrations or other lens defects, in your print

The one thing bad negatives taught me, and many other people was, “How to make a good print”.
So how many photographers on any of the social websites out there walk EVERYWHERE with a tripod, a medium or large format camera, have tested their materials and equipment extensively and know their place in the broader history of photography?

Well not me that’s for sure. That’s why I love my mobile phone and my desktop publishing software, and flickr and the web in general.In part three, I will elaborate.

*At one point in my experiments, I used a Developer called pyro, with a recipe for it, that lowered my favourite film down from 400 ISO, to 6 ISO, it gave beautiful long scale negatives, but was very tricky and messy to work with, in the end I settled for, my own hand made D25. I’m now using a 2 bath developer solution, with a long PH buffer after the developer.
**Artists Like Joel Peter-Witkin and The Starn Twins, took this all to another level, as their work is the antithesis to these ideas, and I admire and respect these artist’s work immensely.

Part one || Part three

About the author.

Some Black and White Images From a 1998 Road Trip

I have uncovered the negs that I shot while on my big 1998 road trip. All 5×4 inch film, I’m surprised at how little of it I shot?

5x4 film shot of Port Augusta circa 1998 showing the dock and some factories on the horizon — 5×4 film shot of Port Augusta circa 1998

Desert and scrub somewhere between Whyalla and Broken Hill circa 1998

Whyalla Steelworks with the bay in the background circa 1998

Whyalla has a tennis court sport complex, circa 1998

Reset Landscape somewhere between Whyalla and Broken Hill, circa 1998 — Desert Landscape somewhere between Whyalla and Broken Hill, circa 1998

About the author.

Upcoming Solo Show

Washing fibre based paper prints in my home made print washer

I’m having a solo exhibition soon.

Here are the details.

The show is entitled ‘Thanks Pandemic’. The exhibition consists of 25 silver gelatine prints printed in my darkroom. It is on display at the Hunt Club Community Arts Centre, 775 Ballarat Road, Deer Park, VIC 3023, from the 7th of October until the 8th of December. An opening celebration will occur on Friday the 7th of October from 6:30 to 8:00pm.