مناظر متباينة، تجارب جوزيف باري بطبع التباين الضوئي الكبير ، مجلة فن التصويراللبنانية

Divergent scenes.. Joseph Barry's experiences with the printing of great light contrast or its connection to this exciting style...

A high-contrast production tends to be something that gets little attention among photographers, perhaps because few in this field produce work with anything more than vanished creative value.

The definite exception here is Joseph Barry - a physician of public health who developed his photography - both in terms of scenery and technique - into Art Jameel.
An image that displays delicacy in the lines, accuracy in the details, and a hint of intermediate color gradations, although in reality these have decreased to just two: black and white. in ink...

Barry said:
- I have been interested in photography since my youth, although this interest has weakened until I started collecting antiques »about ten years ago, as soon as my efforts to photograph the glassware I collected revived enthusiasm in my attachment to photography in general. For some time now, I have been experimenting with different working methods to convert monochromatic prints with a continuous color gradient into pure black and white colors, with the total cancellation of all intermediate color gradations.
I tried all the accepted engraving processes - color gradient font, bas-relief, stippling screen, graining - and I achieved the most success achieved by increasing graininess using a very diluted (MQ) look with the latex film that is produced at the end - after several stages Positive black and white with the same color gradient as the original.
However, I found the process very tiring and the results unreliable; So I finally settled on the method that I am trying now, which is based on solarisation using linear film.

Barry continues:
In most magazines and galleries we see some very fine black-and-white layers, but they are almost all single examples of interesting relief effect, most of them based on great light contrast, linear insolation, or graining: but I have yet to meet anyone so focused as I am on the search for a method. A work that changes the continuous color gradient into black and white, without causing a material change to the color gradient of the original. Maybe I wasn't looking in the right places, or maybe I'm the only one who thinks the idea is a good idea.
I feel that the black and white print is characterized by an artistic effect that allows making frames for it, and allows it to compete with the zinnia, watercolor, charcoal, or pen and ink drawings to occupy the available space on the wall. I also feel that the type of prints that I produce may have a place in the advertising field, such as hotel publications. And cloth - to put utensils on top of it on the tables - and food menus in restaurants, instead of the large light contrast images that are often used.
Dr. Barry admits that passion over the few years is a typical method that achieves the results of his experiments, which have turned into a kind of past, but he has reached a successful one that can be repeated.
He says:
- I tried to read all the available literature on engraving photography - in these "solarization" methods are not reliable, and the results are difficult to write, most writers claim to predict. But I have found that if you work with the same precision and care as you would with a color print. You can then get an acceptable engraving print from almost any negative, and I point out here that the extremely high light contrast on the lithium film will give a purely black and white result, but the details of the highlights or shadows will be lost for the most part.
The first thing that is necessary in my process is to produce two positive transparencies - one that gives pure black with detail in the strong shadows, but none in the bright areas, and the other that gives detail in the mid-tone areas and highlights but nothing in the strong shadows. This, the first transparency is produced on the material
Leith thus gives a positive large light contrast for deeper color gradations: while the second is produced by insolation on a leith film that gives details to the brights only. The two positives are then combined together and touch-printed to produce the negative that will generate the final print.
The process in detail, as improved by Dr. Barry, is as follows:
Kodak (Tri-X) film is rated at 1600 aza and shown in a promicrol, thus giving a negative with a good color gradation range and a fairly soft graining. This negative is printed on Koda Graff slide film (ON4) and shown in (D163) at a dilution of 1 + 3 to give a positive Main color gradient continuous.

That is, to get the deep shadows positive, the main positive is made first, the contact course to the negative on (ON4). She appears in the guise of Leith.
Then touch-print this negative to produce a positive.

As for the stage of insolation, the main positive is placed on a slide (ON4) that is not exposed to light under the magnifier and an exposure is given after that the exposed film is transferred to a dish under the magnifier and the appearance is poured over it. Here a counter starts running: and after ten seconds, the magnifier is turned on to give the film slide a second exposure After the exposure, the film is allowed to be exposed for an additional 25 seconds.
The time and light strength of this second exposure will have to be determined by trial and error; If they are determined, they should remain constant. As for the first exposure, it should be the only variable. While all other changes are constant, this first exposure becomes the one that determines the gradient point at which the insolation and gradient reflection occur.

Now, the two positives are meticulously recorded together, and printed on a 10" x 8" (4 ON) chip. The negative produced in this way needs to be spatting, and then touch-printed to secure a 10 x 8 inch positive.
This negative, in turn, should be condensed and then contact-printed to produce the final negative from which finished 10 x 8-inch prints can be made.
We point out here that the appearance of the lion is used for these last stages.
As for the quality of the final edition, as Dr. Barry confirms, it depends a lot on capturing the most accurate curriculum that does not exist
It can be understood through trial and error, in addition to keeping meticulous records in detail for reference and comparison.
This is not the fastest way among the methods of working in the dark room, and we need to devise systematic work methods to achieve success. However, the finished images certainly make the effort worthwhile, as long as the method produces results that are more pleasant and exciting than those of other dark-room tricks, such as bas-relief and direct solarization⏹