Raw
Materials – Part One: Film
ISO 400 Black-and-white chromogenic films - Ilford XP2 and Kodak TCN-400
©Chuck DeLaney NYI Dean
 The real fun of black-and-white photography is experimentation
for many people. As we'll get to way down the road in this series, black-and-white
photography is also about control for the kinds of great photographers who put the effort
into learning to pull an exquisite black-and-white print.
In fact, here's the first assignment, let's call itAssignment Number One, for all
the readers of this series.
If you've never been to a good photography museum or gallery, make it your business to
look at some fine black-and-white silver prints made by masters. If possible look at
prints by Ansel Adams, Barbara Morgan, George Tice (a name some of you may have never
heard), Edward or Cole Weston, and (when he made them himself) W. Eugene Smith. This is by
no means intended to be a "greatest B/W printer" list. Rather, it's just the
names of some great printmakers that come to mind quickly. Once you've seen a few
black-and-white fine art prints, you'll be able to readily identify a black-and-white
print made by a master photographer who can bring out the maximum effect in all parts of a
black-and-white image.
©Chuck DeLaney NYI Dean
 If you're unaware of the term "silver print" don't be
put off. In galleries and museums everything is precious. In galleries, the stuff is
precious because it's for sale. In museums, things are precious because museums are
supposed to be repositories of quality. In reality, "silver print" is just a
pretentious way of saying "silver halide print," denoting a print made of
black-and-white paper that is sensitive to light because it has silver halide crystals in
it. This is the standard stuff of photographic prints for most of the past hundred years.
We realize that many readers are fully familiar with the joy of looking at a rich
black-and-white print. But to those individuals we must point out that we also know that a
lot of our readers are just discovering black-and-white photography and know the work of
black-and-white masters only from textbook, magazine and newspaper reproductions. It's to
this latter group that this assignment is geared. Anyone who cares to do so, is welcome to
email us at Bk2B&W, and tell us what you saw and
where you saw it. We'll be happy to print choice tidbits from selected mail.
Black-and-White negative film
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Until
the computer came along with the power to strip all color out of an image, black-and-white
photographs usually began with a black-and-white negative image. In our series on the raw
materials that are available for the black-and-white process, we'll start with film, then
spend a little time discussing developers, and then cover traditional black-and-white
printing paper.
Black-and-white chromogenic films - Ilford XP2 and Kodak TCN-400
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©Chuck
DeLaney NYI Dean
 We're not
chemists, and we're not the world's greatest experts on these two films. But we have a lot
of fun using both of them. Let's start with the names. We call these two films chromogenic
black-and-white films because they use the same type of image activation as color negative
films. The black-and-white negative is created by the color couplers that in other
chromogenic films creates a color negative.
This seems, at first, a little like a strange pathway. Since black-and-white films are
cheap and easy to process and black-and-white negatives are very stable and if properly
fixed and washed will last for a hundred years or more, why would anyone want to use more
expensive color-type materials that are harder to process and less stable over time?
There's really only one key reason-the films can be processed in the same color negative
chemistry, called C-41, that's used for color negative films.
For a long time, few people seemed to need the film. We are just guessing that Ilford
intended it for the journalist who had to squeeze off a roll of B/W now and then, or the
photographer who wanted to get creative without learning how to process black-and-white.
As time wore on, Ilford XP-2 became more and more popular, and there are a few main
reasons for that.
©Chuck DeLaney NYI Dean
 First, the people who killed photography the first time around
had made it so hard to find any black-and-white processing that was any good that it was
easier to shoot XP-2. That way, at least you could take it to any one-hour lab or photo
store and have a choice of processing. In the 1980s and early 90s it became very hard to
find labs that could do a decent job with conventional black-and-white film.
On the other hand, you could take a roll of XP-2 and at least get a decent negative. It
probably won't last one hundred years but then again you probably won't either. But, you
could have it in an hour or so, therefore XP-2 offered two benefits-any lab that could
process C-41 could just toss it in the tank, and it was fast.
The other big plus for the film lay in the fact that the one hour labs that could process
the stuff started playing with the idea of printing with it on conventional color print
paper, the so-called C print.
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©Chuck
DeLaney NYI Dean
 All of a sudden,
photographers discovered that they had a quick and easy way to make prints in a number of
different tonal ranges. If the lab operator was hip, by playing with the cyan, magenta and
yellow filtration, it was possible to give a roll of film a sepia look, or a blue/black
tonality, even greens and pale tans.
Work produced in this fashion began to crop up more and more in the portfolios of portrait
photographers and wedding specialists. People started to get interested in the look.
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©Chuck DeLaney
NYI Dean
 All of a sudden
Ilford's product had a market. Guess who stepped in? That's right, the folks from Kodak
noticed the growth in the market place and brought out TCN-400 close to five years ago.
Assignment Number Two
Too few photographers who use point-and-shoot
cameras ever use black-and-white film. In fact, let's make this Assignment Number Two.
Purchase and use a roll of either XP-2 or TCN-400. Try to use the roll on a few different
types of subjects. Try a portrait subject outdoors, a portrait subject by window light, a
landscape and perhaps an interior image of some sort.
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What about availability? Chances are, you won't find either of these films in
the local discount or drug store. Any good photo specialty store should have (or be able
to order within a day or two) one or both of them.
In addition, we have good news: The Ilford XP-2 black-and-white single-use camera is back!
That's right. A few years ago, in recognition of the phenomenal growth of single-use
cameras, Ilford brought out a single-use flash model that used its XP-2 black-and-white
film. For a while, the camera was taken off the market, but we checked with the technical
services department of Ilford and learned that the XP-2 black-and-white single-use model
is back. What's more, Ilford is also marketing a single-use model that is loaded with its
traditional ISO 400 black-and-white films HP-5.
How do the films differ? Truthfully, we've never done any side-by-side comparisons.
Sometimes, we think that TCN-400 yields a slightly finer grain print. When we first got
samples when it came on the market our local one-hour hotshot liked the way it performed.
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©Chuck DeLaney
NYI Dean
 Bear in mind that at
the New York Institute we have the choice of a dozen or more custom photo labs within a
twenty-block radius. Most of the time, if the job calls for black-and-white images, we use
traditional materials. For some photographers who don't have ready access to good
black-and-white labs, these films may present a solution of sorts and become your
black-and-white film of first resort.
Working with either of these materials requires a little bit of collaboration with the
processor unless you run your own C-41 line and do your own color printing. What you get
out (in terms of prints) depends a lot on how the lab operator sets the printing
filtration. It makes sense to try to develop an ongoing relationship with one lab with
regard to establishing what tonality you want in the final print, particularly if you're
having an enlargement made. That's why we insisted in Assignment Number Two that you meet
someone who is on the ball in the lab where you dropped the film.
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©Chuck DeLaney NYI Dean
 Next installment, we'll
turn to some conventional black-and-white films you should try.
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