Black and White Photo Art.

How is it possible to decide in advance what tone an important area will have in the final Photograph. It is quite simple if you know that for any area of uniform brightness, a reflected-light meter will recommend an exposure that will render that brightness in the middle gray in the Black and White Photo.
Two areas often metered when calculating exposures this way are skin tones and shadow areas. An exposure for a portrait is often based on the skin tone of the subject. The other area frequently metered as a basis for exposure is the darkest area in which the photographer wants to keep a full sense of texture and detail.
One object that can be metered is the palm of your hand. Another useful substitution reading is from a gray test card, it reflects 18 % of the light falling on it and a white side that reflects 90 % of the light. A gray card is often used to balance the light in a studio setup or when copying an object such as a painting. It is also useful in color photography as a standard against which the color balance of a print can be matched.
With our digital camera all of the above want apply. Most digital cameras are automated and advanced that you simply point and shoot. Choosing your f/stops or apertures are not important in obtaining a quality print or a rendition of any scene. The photographer hands are tied and creativity takes a back seat.
I will never shoot a digital camera due to those restraints and a lack of negative, which I will need to create my Hand Tinted Black and White photo Art. I love to manipulate my fully manual camera to interpret each scene. The unaided eye will give you unlimited freedom to allow you to capture each scene as you like. Roll film will some day return to our main stream because the burden and lack of freedom of our digital cameras. The rules of taking photos the classic way still apply in the Art world. Technology has become a stumbling block for our Art world, but true artist don't need any computer aides.

**The Zone system can be used not only to plan exposure and development for a normal-contrast Black and White negative, but also to plan unusually low or high contrast. Metering a scene will reveal the lightest values. A flat negative lacks Zone 0,I,VIII and IX densities will remain soft, luminous, low contrast feeling of the scene. A contrasty negative has limited tonal ranges, with little details. Most tones fall in the Zones 0 and Zone IX. Contrast can be decreased by increasing the exposure and decreasing the development. By doing this you can determine what Zones will be in the middle of the Zone scale.
**I shoot color film versus Black and White film to avoid this Phenomenon. I enlarge my Black and White Photos to reveal and enhance Zone II through Zone VIII. This allows me to Hand Tint each scene according to the actual colors present. The colors are always placed in parts of the scene to highlight areas of interest. This is where the magic begins. I can alter the colors in areas that has little or no color. By manipulating the colors the Photos look surreal, but in reality if you look closely at my Hand Tinted Black and White Photos their are hidden flaws that only you can see if you have the actual color Photo for comparison. This make my Photo Art unique.
**I can take any Black and White negative and create limitless Art from the same scene. The " 2 Zone Technique" that I have created and developed give me freedom that no Computer generated (digital) imagery allows. I know that all the Computer generated Photos will fade with time.
**My Hand Tinted Black and White Photos meets or exceeds Archives Standards.

**I use my view (6cm X 7cm) camera because it allows me the freedom that lets me capture my visions and imaginations on film. There is no limit on what the view camera can accomplish. The user can manipulate the movements the same way a conductor dictates to his orchestra how to play a passage of music. It is my best asset and I find new ways to invent my Photos.
**Unlike most cameras, which are permanently aligned so that the lens and film are exactly parallel, a view camera can be deliberately unaligned. The view camera can change and control an image due to its movements. Two basic movements are swings and tilts. Swings are movements around the vertical axis of either lens or film, that is, either twisted to the left or right. Tilts are movements around the horizontal axis of the lens or film, that is it is tipped forward or backward.
**The first movements, rise and fall, change the placement of the image on the film by changing the position of the film by changing the position of the film or lens relative to one another. Rise and fall of the back changes the location of the image but does not effect its shape
**Shift is a sideways movements of either the front or the back of the camera. It is exactly the same as rise and fall except the movements takes place from side to side. Image shape does not change with back-shift, but does change slightly with front shift. Shift of the lens affects the spatial relationship of objects because the lens is now viewing them from a different point.
**A front-tilt, does not change distances inside the camera and thus does not affect image size or shape. But it does affect focus by altering the len's focal plane. When the angle between film and lens is changed by tilting the back of the camera, the shape of the object changes considerably and the focus changes some what.
**Swing is a sideways twisting of either the front or the back of the camera around the vertical axis. A back-swing just like a back-tilt moves one part of the film closer to the lens while moving another part farther away. Front-swing, since it involves swiveling the lens to the left or right, skews the focal plane of the lens to one side or another. The general effect of this is to this is to create a sharply defined zone of focus that travels at angle across an object.
**The practical application of the four movements are virtually endless. Some are subtle and complex, particularly when used in combination.

The process that creates a picture on a piece of film involves a reaction between light and the sliver bromide crystals spread through the gelatin of the emulsion layer.
A negative is born when millions of exposed silver bromide crystals are converted to Silver metal by the developer.
Silver bromide crystals are light sensitive, they don't respond equally to all wavelenghts of light. Colors are actually different wave-lenghts within the visible part of the electromagnetic spectrum, these wavelenghts must be factored in when making Black-and-White Photos. Different types of Film responds color differently. Orthochromatic film responds well to shorter wavelenghts, toward the violet to yellow end of the spectrum. Panchromatic Film gives more of a natural appearance. This film records most all colors, red through violet. Infra red Film only records visible colors as well as some longer wavelenghts that are not visible. Its' toward the ultra-violet end of the spectrum.
Unless the silver bromide is properly exposed, they will respond variably to shorter wavelenghts, starting at ultra-violet through blue green.

A Black and White Negative is a reversal of the tones in the original scene. Where the scene is bright, the negative develops many dense, dark grains of silver. These dense areas hold back light from the paper, they prevent the formation of silver in the papers emulsion and so creates a bright area corresponding to the bright area in the scene. Where the scene was dark, the negative is thin or even clear. It passes much light to the paper and dark silver is formed in the emulsion, resulting in a dark area in the print.
Color films take advantage of the fact that nearly all colors can be reproduced by mixing only a few basic or primary colors. Color films are made with three color-sensitive layers, each of which records the wavelenghts of lights in a different third of the color spectrum. Colors negative film is processed to be the opposite in colors and density of the original scene; then it is printed onto a sheet of sensitized paper to make a positive color print.
This is why I shoot color films to Print out my Black and White Photos the Classic way. Color films gives more details in my prints. The colors remain true and the tones are richer. I use the actual color photo as a guide when my Hand Tint my Black and White Prints.