 Welcome to episode seven from the balcony. I hope you're all doing well. Staying healthy, being safe. Let's roll the intro. My name is David Patton. When I started photography, I wanted to make art. I wanted to be a landscape photographer. But with a family to feed and bills to pay, I decided it would be better to be a working photographer than a starving artist. So I took a job as a photojournalist. 25 years and thousands of assignments later, it was time to go back to my first love. It was time to follow my passion. Come along on my journey to become the best black in my photography I can be. Whether it be film or digital, I will be sharing what I learned through my successes and my failures and hopes to inspire and educate. This is my journey. This is Bright in the Edge. So lately, my newsfeed and Instagram and Facebook have been bombarded by those ridiculous ads for promoting those brushes for Photoshop. You know the ones, the fake lightning and clouds you add to your landscape photos to make them special. And it must be because I've read some of the comments under some of those ads and that was probably my biggest mistake. But it did give me some ideas. It made me start thinking a little bit. So that's kind of where I'm starting this vlog off with today. And it's in these comments where I keep seeing the name Ansel Adams popping in in defense of the digital manipulation these fake photo brushes for photo for Photoshop. It makes me wonder if these people using Ansel Adams for defending their position really understand what manipulation is in a dark room. They would use phrases like well Ansel Adams manipulated the heck out of his photos. Well my Ansel Adams did what most photographers do and there's a way you make photos in the dark room. It's not like Ansel was out getting lucky in the field with his camera and then saving boring photos in the dark room with manipulation. Ansel Adams had a workflow that that started from out in the field started with the exposure and he would develop for the exposure. That would give him all the information needed on the negative to bring out what he wanted for the print. So to say he manipulated his photos heavily. Well there was a whole support system going on with that manipulation. It's not as easy as just clicking a mouse, dragging, dropping lightning bolts onto your frame or putting in the sky. There's a lot of work involved in making a print. It's quite a craft. So anyone who's made prints in the dark room are familiar with what Ansel Adams was doing that manipulation they like to use. It's been about 20 years probably since I've done any printing in the dark room and when I was printing I was printing probably thousands of images for newspaper. I wasn't an Ansel Adams in the dark room. I was but I was fast. I was quick. That's because I was in journalism. But even though it's been so long I think I can still remember the dance. Let me walk you through it. Turn the red light on. Slide the contrast filter into the enlarger. Load the negative into the negative folder. Turn the enlarger on and slide the easel underneath. Set the enlarger lens to f8. Take a grain magnifier. Slide it into the light. Focus the grain to make a sharp image. Now I need to make a test strip. I strip a photographic paper and put it on the easel. Expose the strip in intervals. Something like four seconds. Expose a little bit more. Eight seconds. Expose a little bit more. 16 seconds. Expose a little bit more. 32 seconds. Drop the strip into the developer. Then stop bath. Then fix. Now turn the lights back on and examine the test strip. Okay now we have a starting point. Let's just say we're at 16 seconds for our exposure. Now it's time to make a print. Red light back on. Set the timer for 16 seconds. Take a full sheet of paper and slide it onto the easel. Expose the sheet. Take it to the developer. Develop. Stop. Fix. Lights back on. Inspect the print. Tired yet? Now we're just getting started. This print doesn't look too bad. Just needs a few adjustments. Red light back on. Set the timer. 16 seconds. New sheet of paper on the easel. We grab our dodging tools and our burning tools. Could be pieces of cardboard on wires. Some holes cut in. Some cardboard or just our hands. Start the timer. Dodge the rocks in the foreground for about six seconds. Move over to the trees over here for about four seconds. Keep the dodge tool moving. Time to burn in the sky. Set the timer for four seconds. Grab your burning tool. In this case a empty paper box. Expose the sheet of paper for four seconds. While continually moving the box covering the foreground. Develop. Stop. Fix. Lights back on. Look at the print. We're almost there. Not, not quite. Red light on. Another sheet of paper on the easel. Set the timer. 16 seconds. Dodge the rock. Six seconds. Dodge the trees. Four seconds. At the timer for eight seconds. Burn in the sky. Grab your favorite tool. Keep it moving. Block the light from the foreground. Expose yours over. Develop. Stop. Fix. Wash. Lights back on. Wow. This will do. This looks good. And that's the dance. Now we have a wonderful print. But in reality you might go through this process another three or four times. So you get just the right print. So yeah. I think Ansel Adams did manipulate his photos. Because that's what you do in the dark room. But I wouldn't say that's the same manipulation as dragging and dropping a Photoshop brush onto a digital file. So if you're going to use Ansel Adams to defend your position on manipulating photos it's good to know exactly what that means. Because he was actually doing something. Something that took skill and time and a lot of labor to make an awesome print. Well I don't know if this video is going to work. I'm just trying to illustrate that making a print in a dark room isn't that trivial. It's not just manipulating a lot. It's a lot of work. It takes a lot of skill. And someone like Ansel Adams was really good at it. It's not unique to just Ansel Adams. There's a lot of really good printers out there that probably don't get enough credit. It's an art in itself. But in no way can it be equated to clicking Photoshop brushes and making fake photos. Well I'm going to end today's video right here. So until next time thanks for coming along for the ride. How's the hair? Get it myself. It's time to burn in the sky. Set the timer for eight. Set the timer for...