Backlight: Exposure, Options and Techniques

The sun was striking these still-green leaves on a bough backed by brilliant color and stark trunks. The difference between the bough and background was about 1.5EV, but reading right off the bough made the colors in the background to go darker, which created a strong play of brightness and color.

As the term implies, backlight is a strong light behind your subject as it faces the camera. In some cases it can cause exposure problems, but it is also one of the most beautiful light sources for translucent subjects. Think of stained glass windows in a church. They are rather dark and dull when the sky is overcast, but when the light comes through them they are the most glorious window treatments of all.

Backlight is inherently contrasty, meaning that there will be a considerable difference in exposure between parts of the subject and the light behind it. In some instances this means that parts of your subject will either sit in silhouette (having form but no detail within the form) or be considerably underexposed. The key to backlighting is to exploit this contrast, to use the shadows it “throws” toward the camera as part of the composition. You do this by biasing exposure toward the brighter light. The usual solution to getting detail in a subject that is backlit is to use flash to “fill” the foreground subject with light, but that defeats the purpose and dramatic potential of this kind of lighting.

Tools and techniques: spot metering mode, exposure compensation, autoexposure lock.

The bright light here is supplemented by reflections off the pond, which provides a natural fill light for the darker parts of the scene. Nonetheless a spot meter reading of f/16 at 1/250 second at ISO 200 was made directly off the bright yellow leaves on the left side of the frame.

Perhaps the most colorful season in which to exploit backlighting is fall, when brilliant color displays combine with low angle light. The key to exposing this type of lighting is to avoid bringing shadow areas into consideration and read from the backlit leaves themselves. This is easily done by using spot metering mode and locking exposure on the brilliant light of the leaves. In most cases this will be the proper exposure, but in some instances you might want to use a + exposure compensation to add some brightness to other parts of the scene. This rarely goes above +0.5EV. Once you attain the exposure and review it to make sure it does the job, lock it, or switch to manual mode to maintain the exposure as you work in the area.

If you are shooting in the shade with a bright sky behind the main subject you can either crop out the sky and not worry about contrast, or expose for the main subject and deal with the bright backlight later in processing. These formations sat in deep shade but I wanted the sky for relief of the forms at the top of the frame. I used CWA to make the exposure, locking it on the formation itself, then recomposed. Later in post I selected the sky, which was blank in the recording, and added a very light blue color wash.

There may be times when working with backlight that the sun is higher in the sky and/or cannot be absorbed by a dense background.  It is essential to then make sure you block the sun from both the image and from exposure consideration. I often do this by finding a shadow area cast by the foreground subject and stand within it to make the picture, or at least position myself so that I block the sun with a branch, rock or other obstruction. Failure to do this will result in flare and an exposure that is thrown off by the strong presence of a direct light source. In addition, it is never a good idea to look through the finder directly at the sun. In this shots I used a branch to black the sun and took my spot reading from the leaves of the center tree.

The Photo Darkroom: Considering an Effective Enlargement Size

A negative can be printed in any number of ways: you can make contact (same size) prints, or reduce or enlarge as you see fit. How big, or small you make a print depends upon a number of factors, including negative sharpness, subject matter, and the end use of the print itself. Also, you're not limited to the original proportions of the negative in the printed image: although you start out with a rectangular or square format you can crop as you see fit and change a horizontal to a vertical, or turn a 4x5 negative into a 4x10 composition.

The first step is to determine just how much enlargement a given negative can take. Place your selected negative in the carrier and bring the enlarger up to the desired height. Check image sharpness--if the image becomes unsharp, lower the enlarger height until it becomes sharper. The next step is to consider grain. Naturally, the bigger the enlargement, the more the appearance of grain. If you have a fairly grainy rendition at 8x10 you can bet that the grain will really pop as you go bigger. It may be hard to see grain by eyeballing it on the easel: a better path is to use a reflecting magnifier placed on the easel to get a better look. Personally, I don't find grain objectionable, but if you do it will certainly become a major factor in determining enlargement size. Grain can be deemphasized somewhat by printing on a lower contrast grade paper or using a diffusion enlarger head (as opposed to a condenser head, which tends to enhance contrast, thus grain).

This crop was made from a medium format negative (2&1/4" square) to yield an 8x20" print. Making larger size prints from medium format or large format negatives pose less of a  problem when it comes to sharpness and grain. This "panorama" crop best served the image.

The main consideration in enlargement size should be the subject of the picture itself. In some cases, the power of the image will overcome any of these considerations. Generally, some images lend themselves to big prints; others call for a more intimate approach. This is a personal matter. However, don't think that a picture has to be big in order to have impact. If you find that you always need to make big prints to make a big impression you should rethink your subject matter and question your motivation. An image should stand on its own, regardless of size. All a big print does is make the viewer stand back a bit more to study it. If it's a solid image it will make it even in 5x7 size. As to size and price, as one sage photographer told me, “Pictures are not pork chops and should not be sold by the pound.”

If you're printing for a gallery show let your subject matter be your guide. Too many people feel they have to go really big for a show, but it just isn't necessary. I've seen very effective and beautiful 5x7 prints hung for a show: the more intimate presentation can work wonders. Then again, 16x20 prints can be real knockouts. All I can say is do what's comfortable and fitting.

Of course, the negative size from which you're printing will have an important effect on how large the print can be made. Making a 16x20-inch print from a 4x5 negative requires much less enlargement than does the same size print from a 35mm negative, which translates to higher sharpness and less grain. In general, you'll be hard pressed to match print quality between 35mm and large format negatives, especially if both are shot of the same scene. Of course, both formats have their purpose.

Last but not least, film speed and quality have an effect on how big you can go and still have an effective print. Some films are simply sharper and finer-grained than others. And, how you expose and develop the negative will also have a profound influence on enlargement quality. A poorly handled negative will never yield anything approaching one that's been well exposed and processed.

Very High Contrast B&W Print Options: Film and Digital

As with all creative departures, manipulation done for its own sake may be interesting, but the true test of any applied technique is whether or not it serves the image. The goal should always be to use technique to enhance your thoughts and feelings about the moment. You may photograph with a certain end look in mind but change your approach and techniques later. Or you may come upon an image in your files that suddenly strikes you as apt for an approach radically different than when you first made the exposure. Following are some interpretive high contrast approaches and the techniques that you can use to achieve them. Note that some references are made to materials no longer available; scanning prints or negatives, or working with digital image files, and using digital processing can achieve the same ends.

High Contrast Processing

High contrast printing involves eliminating or subduing the middle tonal values, thus producing an image where the visual information is communicated in black and white, with little or no gray tonality. High contrast can be used to make near line-drawing renditions, or to create highly graphic interpretations of a scene. As it mutes information in the middle values it accentuates the lines and forms that define the subject.

Virtually every image can be printed in high contrast; critical decisions, however, will limit this technique to certain moods or scenes. Fashion, urban landscapes, portraits, architecture and winterscapes are the most common types of images to which high-contrast techniques are applied, but this list by no means limits the possibilities.

This high contrast image was made from a digital file of leaves and branches in the snow. The image was loaded in Photoshop into the Threshold Adjustment Layer. After merging the Layer and then creating a Duplicate Layer on which painting work was done, a white foreground brush was used to paint away certain areas and details, and a black foreground brush was used to paint into the darker areas where discontinuous glitches of white appeared. Similar work can be done on lith film using opaque dyes. The image was then printed on a slightly warm background layer.

For darkroom workers, the simplest way to achieve a high contrast effect is to work with a high-contrast paper or high-contrast filter when using VC paper, namely a #5 grade. With most negatives, this choice eliminates many of the middle gray values.

Unlike more commonly used grades, such as #2 or #3, grade #5 has a rather narrow exposure latitude, which means that critical testing is key. Expose too long and the whites will "gray up"; underexposure may yield a very weak image. (#5 can also be used to correct very underexposed negatives, and will often reveal details not seen by the untrained eye.)

If even a #5 grade fails to yield the desired result use of a "lith" film as an intermediary will do the trick. Lith (also called ortho) film is still available today from Freestyle (note: no commercial affiliation) in 8x10 sheets, mainly used by those who do platinum and palladium and other "alternative process" work. In the past it was available in formats from 35mm up. When developed in a special high-contrast developer no middle gray values will record. You could also have used Kodak Tech Pan film developed for high contrast. (Note: No longer available.)

You could make an intermediary lith negative from an original negative or slide. To make it from a slide, all you need to do was enlarge or contact print the slide onto the lith film, just as you would make a print. This creates a reversed, or negative image, which you then use to make a positive print. To make a lith negative from a negative, you first enlarge or contact print the negative onto the lith film, and then enlarged or contacted that positive onto another sheet of lith film, which creates a negative. (All film imaging, when done on film or paper, goes negative-positive-negative-positive, and so forth. This allows for some interesting image derivations.) Lith film can be processed under red safelight conditions, so you can inspect the negative as it developed to get it just right.

Once the lith negative is created, you can retouch it with dye to eliminate any gray values that may still exist; when you opaque a negative that opaqued area will print white. After you're satisfied with the negative you can print on virtually any grade paper to obtain a high-contrast image, though a #5 will guarantee the best effect.

You can also photograph with a high-contrast film in the camera, though experience shows that working from a full-tone negative and then converting it to high-contrast yields the most options.

The digital high-contrast conversion is quite simple. You can use presets in many programs; work with a Curve or Levels Adjustment Layer in Photoshop; or, my usual technique, work with the Threshold Adjustment Layer. The latter has slider control options that allow you to fine tune results. And, just like using dye on lith film, you can paint with black (or sometimes white) to remove any "flaws" or even eliminate details by covering them so they do not show through on the final image. 

High contrast does not always mean just black and white and no gray values: there may be an alteration of tonal values to accentuate a "hard" contrast with some gray values remaining. This effect can be used effectively for all manner of imaging where you don't want a line-drawing effect yet want the graphic appeal of a higher-than-normal contrast image.

Customizing Black-and-White Film Processing: The Ringaround Test

The processing instruction sheet packed with most film tells you to develop for, say, 8&1/2 minutes at 68-degrees F. It outlines an agitation schedule and advises on adjusting times for variations in temperature. Though following these guidelines should yield printable negatives, they don't necessarily result in optimum negatives for each person or more importantly for each type of scene. In some cases, the times and temperatures given are an average, and only through testing can you arrive at what's best for you. Also, everyone's in-camera meter or handheld meter--and way of reading light--is different. 

Coupled with idiosyncrasies in processing, such as faster or slower agitation, is the fact that some thermometers aren't totally accurate; also, chemical mixing may be off, with dilutions varying as much as +/- 10%. The result is that two people may shoot the same scene with the same film, and develop in essentially the same way, and still get slightly different looking negatives. Though following procedures strictly is one way out of this problem, you may also have to modify your developing technique to get the most printable negatives for your style of printing. Before we examine a way to gain this personal touch, let's get one thing straight: there's no sense getting involved with your own printing unless you handle your own negative developing.

Below: Hong Kong Market, 1976. Tri-X 400. Exposure: Spot reading on highlights, +1.5 stop compensation. Processing: D-76 1:1, 8 minutes (-25% recommended), 30 second agitation cycle.

                                   

 Personalizing Negatives

The first step in gaining control over your negatives is knowing the look of the negative you want to produce. Some printers like dense negatives (slightly overdeveloped and/or overexposed), while others prefer thin negatives (slightly underexposed and/or underdeveloped.) This preference has to do with a number of factors, including the type of light source you print with (generally, printing with a condenser type head means you'll go for thinner negatives, while denser negatives are preferred by those using a cold light head); what a favorite negative looks like (by accident, one negative prints perfectly for you; though you can't put your finger on what made it happen, you know you want to have it happen again); and the feeling a negative imparts to a print (this may have to do with contrast, but it also can be the grain or the amount of detail in shadow areas.)

All these preferences are valid, but they are too often a subjective matter, one that can't be quantified or qualified by graphs and charts. The point is to be able to reach your goal consistently, and be able to produce the kind of negative you want without having to resort to luck. This can be accomplished by running a few tests, and then sticking to a technique you'll follow again and again.

Givens: Stick to the Plan

The first given in this procedure is that you'll stay with a set time and temperature: we do this to cut down on the number of variables in film development. Then we'll use a certain way of reading exposures. For example, if you read through-the-lens (TTL), with a handheld incident meter, or with a spot meter, stick with it; if you meter highlights and shadows and average, spot meter shadow or highlight readings and compensate, or allow your in-camera autoexposure meter to average readings, keep it the same throughout.

Once you've set up your “house” rules you can begin to make subtle changes in film processing. 

Agitation, Pours, and Dilution

While it's known that agitation can have an effect on film development, it's not generally understood that the fashion in which film is agitated can result in thinner or denser negatives. Some agitate gently, while others shake film cans as if they're mixing a martini. Some may use drums mounted on electric rollers, while others agitate every 30 seconds or once a minute. Again, stick to your method, but understand that changing it slightly can have an effect on results.

Removing chemistry from a film developing tank after each step is done in various ways--some people start their pour 15 seconds before the end of each step, others wait until the total developing time is elapsed. If you wait until time is expired you're actually adding from 10 to 30 seconds developing time. There's no right or wrong here--we're just interested in controlling the process. Be consistent.

The same goes for developer dilution--some dilute 1:1 for more even tones (or whatever your developer solution requires), while others use a lower dilution ratio than suggested for the added "punch" it gives negatives. Stick with a dilution time after time until you find out how it alters the look of the image; try another if you're dissatisfied.

Once you've lined up all your procedures, and made sure that you follow them consistently, you're ready to begin a test that will help you determine how to apply your personal disciplines to getting the best results from your film. You'll need three rolls of film and developing tools and chemicals.

Below: White Sands, 1982, Kodak Plus-X, shot at ISO 100. Exposure: f/11 at 1/500 second, spot reading on highlight with +1 exposure compensation. Developed in D-76 1:1 for 8 minutes, 30 second agitation cycle.

Film Test: Ringarounds

Load your preferred film in your camera and set the meter at the film's rated speed--ISO 400, for example. Find a scene, or set one up, that has a 5-stop brightness range. For example, use a scene with f/4 for a shadow reading and f/16 for a highlight, with all tones in between. Don't pick a high-contrast scene where you have a bright highlight and deep shadow. Set the shutter speed so that the "correct" (or averaged) exposure is f/8. (Thus, if the meter reads f/5.6 at 1/500 sec, alter the balance to get a reading of f/8 at 1/250 sec.) Do this with three rolls of film. On each roll make three five-stop brackets of the scene; shoot one set at ISO 100, one at the normal setting of ISO 400 and the last at ISO 1600. In other words, shoot a series at f/4, f/5.6, f/8, f/11 and f/16 at ISO 100, 400 and 1600. This is your exposure ringaround.

Load each onto a separate reel. Develop one roll in your normal fashion, with whatever time, temperature and dilution you normally use. Develop the next roll at 50% over your normal developing time, then the last roll at 30% less than your normal time. Keep time, temperature and agitation cycle constant throughout. In other words, if your normal time is 10 min, develop roll #2 at 15 min and roll #3 at 7 min. After the negatives are dry, make contact sheets (on a “normal” or #2 grade paper or by using a variable contrast #2 filter) of each set or simply check the negatives with a loupe.

Study the negatives and/or contact sheet; find the negative that has the richest tonal range, with detail in the shadow areas and controlled, printable highlights. Once you've chosen the negative, note where it appears on the ringaround and see how it was obtained.

Judging Results and Making Adjustments

If the prime negative was of the averaged reading developed normally, then your technique is right on target and you can go on your merry way. But if the prime negative is, say, the averaged reading negative developed plus 50%, then you've got some adjusting to do. Adjustments can be made in either your camera meter setting or your developing time. Let's say that the best negative is obtained at the f/5.6 setting with normal developing time--in this case, you can rate the ISO 400 film at EI 200 when using your metering system. Don't be afraid of "fooling" the camera--all you're doing is recalibrating your system for optimum results.

Or, if your best results were obtained with the plus 50% developing time at the f/11 setting you can adjust your meter to EI 800 for an ISO 400 film and adjust developing times accordingly. After you've made the necessary adjustments, refine the test even further by shooting a few rolls of everyday scenes at the new settings and developing times. You may end up clipping a few seconds of the time, or changing your meter setting by 1/3 or 1/2-stop (changing ISO is the easiest way to do this.)

Each camera/metering system you own should be subjected to this test, as each one represents a variable. However, if your results are really out of whack have the unit serviced. No amount of fine tuning can make up for a truly faulty system. Also, you can change results somewhat by going from a once a minute to a 30 sec agitation cycle (this increases developer activity); adding a degree or two to solution temperature; or switching to a different dilution. Whatever you do, be consistent.

Below: West River, 1982, Tri-X at ISO 320. Exposure: f/8 at 1/125 second, CWA metering, no exposure compensation. Developed in D-76 1:1 for 8 minutes, 1 minute agitation cycle.

                             

One side benefit of this test is that it can open your eyes to how negatives can be manipulated with time and exposure variations. You may find yourself having very strong feelings about a particular scene and decide to expose and develop it accordingly. The test will give you a reference catalog of all the variables and their consequences. You'll see negatives that are overexposed and overdeveloped, underexposed and overdeveloped, underexposed and underdeveloped, and so forth. This can also become a guide for tracing mistakes and problems. In any case, knowing the procedures that will give you the negatives you need gives you a real sense of control over your photography.

Roll and Sheet Film

Note that these procedures are easily done when using sheet film, as you can customize processing and settings for each frame. On roll film my procedure was to have one camera for "normal" contrast and one for high-contrast scenes. (I even swapped film mid-roll at times using a changing bag or simply finished a roll in the same general lighting conditions.) 

Be Consistent to Get Consistent Results

Everyone is an individual, and each person's technique should be a tool, rather than a hindrance in expressing that singular vision. By customizing your procedures and shooting for your individual tastes you'll be getting the most out of every situation. There's no need to have every piece of equipment you own calibrated, or to make graphs and charts of developing curves, but you need to be consistent and know the consequences of your actions. If you follow this course you'll gain the most photographic freedom and produce the best possible negatives for your printing.